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During the August 2008 Russo-Georgian War, the operations of Russia’s 58th Army were termed as “coercion into peace”. It is an appropriate term once one recalls what truly was at stake then. Russians did win that war and, indeed, coerced Georgia into a much more peaceful mood. In Clausewitzian terms the Russians achieved the main object of the war by compelling the enemy to do Russia’s will. Russians, as the events of the last 19 years showed, have no illusions anymore about the possibility of any kind of reasonable civilized conduct from the combined West, least of all from the United States which still continues to reside in her bubble which insulates her from any outside voices of reason and peace. The American global track record of the last few decades does not require any special elaborations—it is a record of military and humanitarian disasters.

Vladimir Putin’s March 1st, 2018 address to Russia’s Federal Assembly was not about Russia’s upcoming presidential elections, as many in the election-obsessed West suggest. Putin’s speech was about coercing America’s elites into, if not peace, at least into some form of sanity, given that they are currently completely detached from the geopolitical, military and economic realities of a newly emerging world. As it was the case with Georgia in 2008, the coercion was based on military power. The Pre-Shoigu Russian Army, for all its real and perceived shortcomings, disposed of the US-trained and partially equipped Georgian force in a matter of five days—the Russian Army’s technology, personnel and operational art was simply better. Obviously such a scenario is not possible between Russia and the United States; that is unless the American myth of technological superiority is blown out of the water.

American power elites, the majority of whom have never served a day in uniform nor ever attended serious military academic institutions and whose expertise on serious military-technological and geopolitical issues is limited to couple of seminars on nuclear weapons and, in the best case scenario, the efforts of the Congressional Research Service are simply not qualified to grasp the complexity, the nature and application of military force. They simply have no reference points. Yet, being a product of the American pop-military culture, also known as military porn and propaganda, these people—this collection of lawyers, political “scientists”, sociologists and journalists who dominate the American strategic kitchen which cooks non-stop delusional geopolitical and military doctrines, can understand one thing for sure—when their poor dears get a bulls-eye on their backs, or foreheads.

The real genesis of Russia’s new generation of bizarre nuclear weapons lies not in the most recent Nuclear Posture Review, but in the George W. Bush administration’s decision in 2001 to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and the bipartisan failure by both the Bush and Obama administrations to engage meaningfully with the Russians over their concerns about American missile defenses. Putin said as much in his remarks. “During all these years since the unilateral U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty,” Putin explained, “we have been working intensively on advanced equipment and arms, which allowed us to make a breakthrough in developing new models of strategic weapons.” Those technological breakthroughs are now here. Sadly, we’re never got the diplomatic ones we needed.

Putin’s message was clear: “You didn’t listen to us then, you will listen to us now”. After that he proceeded with what can only be described as a military-technological Pearl-Harbor meets Stalingrad. The strategic ramifications of the latest weapon systems Putin presented are immense. In fact, they are historic in nature. Of course, many American pundits, expectedly, dismissed that as bluster—it is expected from the US military “expert” community. Others were not as dismissive and some were, indeed, deeply shocked. The overall impression today, a day after Putin’s presentation, can be described in simple terms as such: the missile gap is real and, in fact, it is not a gap but a technological abyss. Paradoxically, this abyss is not where many do admit it—such as the RS-28 Sarmat ballistic missile, whose existence and approximate characteristics were more or less known for years. It is, undeniably, an impressive technological achievement of having a ballistic missile with not only practically unlimited range but also capable of trajectories which render any kind of Anti-Ballistic Defense useless. In the end, to be attacked from the South Pole, through South America, is not a contingency the US military is capable of facing. Probably not for very many years.

Nor is the Russian M=20+ hypersonic glider weapon system called Avangard, which is already in series production, an unexpected development—the United States has its own, albeit not successful yet, program for such types of weapons and those ideas were being floated in the US since the mid-2000s under the tutelage of the PGS (Prompt Global Strike). Yes, these are stunning technological achievements by Russia with Jeffrey Lewis’ term “bizarre” being a euphemism for “we don’t have anything comparable”, but it wasn’t even here where the real shock should be. Several of my articles on this resource have been focused precisely in the area where the United States was more than lagging—cruise missiles, all kinds of them. I predicted the American real military decline coming namely by this path many years ago, today it is patently clear that Russia holds an overwhelming military-technological advantage in cruise and aero-ballistic missiles and leads the US by decades in this crucial field.

While Western punditry was discussing all those exotic and, no doubt, stunning weapon systems designed for the delivery of nuclear weapons to any point on the globe with very high precision, many true professionals were gasping for the air when the Dagger (Kinzhal) was unveiled. This is a complete game changer geopolitically, strategically, operationally, tactically and psychologically. It was known for some time now that Russian Navy was already deploying a revolutionary M=8 capable 3M22 Zircon anti-shipping missile. As impressive and virtually uninterceptable by any air defenses the Zircon is, the Kinzhal is simply shocking in its capabilities. This, most likely based on the famed Iskander airframe, M=10+ capable, highly maneuverable, aero-ballistic missile with a range of 2000 kilometers, carried by MiG-31BMs, just rewrote the book on naval warfare. It made large surface fleets and combatants obsolete. No, you are not misreading it. No air-defense or anti-missile system in the world today (maybe with the exception of the upcoming S-500 specifically designed for the interception of hyper-sonic targets) is capable of doing anything about it, and, most likely, it will take decades to find the antidote. More specifically, no modern or perspective air-defense system deployed today by any NATO fleet can intercept even a single missile with such characteristics. A salvo of 5-6 such missiles guarantees the destruction of any Carrier Battle Group or any other surface group, for that matter–all this without use of nuclear munitions.

The usage of such a weapon, especially since we know now that it is deployed already in Russia’s Southern Military District is very simple–the most likely missile drop spot by MiG-31s will be in the international waters of the Black Sea, thus closing off the whole Eastern Mediterranean to any surface ship or group of ships. Russia can also close off the Persian Gulf completely. It also creates a massive no-go zone in the Pacific, where MiG-31BMs from Yelizovo in Kamchatka or Centralnaya Uglovaya Air Base in Primosrky Krai will be able to patrol vast distances over the ocean. It is, though, remarkable that the current platform for the Kinzhal is the MiG-31–arguably the best interceptor in history. Obviously, the MiG-31′s ability to reach very high supersonic speeds (well in excess of M=2) is a key factor in the launch. But no matter what the procedures for the launch of this terrifying weapon are, the immediate strategic consequences of Kinzhal’s operational deployment are as follows:

It finally moves aircraft carriers into the niche of pure power projection against weak and defenseless adversaries, and away from the remote sea zone of Russia, be it the Mediterranean, Pacific or North Atlantic. This also means a complete no-go zone for any of the 33 Aegis-equipped US Navy destroyers and cruisers which are crucial for American Ballistic Missile Defense;

It makes classic CBGs as a main strike force against a peer or near-peer completely obsolete and useless, it also makes any surface combat ship defenseless regardless of its air-defense or anti-missile capabilities. It completely annuls hundreds of billions of dollars investment into those platforms and weapons, which suddenly become nothing more than fat defenseless targets. The whole concept of Air-Sea Battle, aka Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons (JAM-GC), which is a cornerstone of American global dominance becomes simply useless—this is a doctrinal and fiscal catastrophe.

Sea Control and Sea Denial change their nature and merge. Those who have such weapons, simply own vast spaces of the sea limited by the ranges of the Kinzhal and its carriers. It also removes completely any crucial surface support for submarines in the area, thus exposing them for Patrol/ASW aviation and surface ships. The effect is multiplicative and it is profound.

Russia has many of those carriers—the program of modernization of MiG-31s to BM was in full steam for some years now, with front line Air Force units seeing a considerable inflow of these aircraft. It is clear now why such modernization was undertaken–it made MiG-31BMs into launch platforms for the Kinzhal. As Marine Major General James L. Jones went on record in 1991, after the First Gulf War, “All it takes to panic a battlegroup is seeing somebody dropping a couple of 50-gallon drums into the water.” The Kinzhal effectively removes any non-suicidal surface force thousands of miles away from Russia’s shores and renders its capabilities irrelevant. In layman’s lingo that means only one thing—the US Navy’s whole surface component becomes a complete hollow force good only for parades and flag demonstration near and in the littorals of weak and underdeveloped nations. This can be done for a tiny fraction of the astronomical costs of US platforms and weapons.

It is very difficult at this stage to fully predict the political fallout of Putin’s speech in the US. What is easy to predict, however, is the use of the beaten to death cliché of asymmetry. The use of this cliché is wrong. What happened on March 1st this year with the announcement and demonstration of new Russian weapons is not asymmetry, it was an acknowledgement of the final arrival of a completely new paradigm in warfare, military technology and, as a consequence in strategy and operational art. Old rules and wisdom have ceased to apply. The United Sates was not and is not prepared for this, despite many real professionals, including in the US itself, warning about the new unfolding military-technological paradigm and a complete American myopia and hubris in anything military related. As Colonel Daniel Davies was forced to admit:

However justified that pride might have been at the time, it quickly mutated into distasteful arrogance. Now, it is an outright danger to the nation. Perhaps nothing exemplifies this threat better than the Pentagon’s dysfunctional acquisition system.

It is prudent to predict today, against the background of an American approach to war that there will be no sensible technological American response to Russia in the foreseeable future. The United States simply has no resources, other than turning on the printing presses and completely bankrupting itself in the process, to counter. But here is the point, Russians know this and Putin’s speech was not about directly threatening the US which, for all intents and purposes, is simply defenseless against the plethora of Russia’s hyper-sonic weapons. Russia does not pursue the objective of destroying the United States. Russia’s actions are dictated by only one cause–to pull a gun on a drunk, rowdy, knife wielding bully in the bar and get him to pay attention to what others may have to say. In other words, Russia brought the gun to a knife fight and it seems that this is the only way to deal with the United States today.

If warnings and the demonstration of Russian military-technological superiority will have an effect, as was the Russian intent from the beginning, some sensible conversation on the new world order may start between key geopolitical players. The world cannot afford any more a pretentious, self-aggrandizing and hollow bully which knows not what it does and threatens the world’s stability and peace. American self-proclaimed hegemony is over where it really matters for any real and perceived hegemon—the military field. It was over for some time now, it just took Putin’s speech to demonstrate the good old Al Capone truism that one can get much further with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone. After all, Russia did try a kind word alone, it didn’t work and the United States has only itself to blame.

The USA should return to the method used before the 1980s where government organizations developed weapons and then contracted production to the private sector. Most of these military/government organizations still exist, but have been sidelined, so crap is developed by a free market profit seeking monopoly, like the F-35.

1. The lethality of of precision guided munitions to easily destroy ultra-expensive ships, tanks, and aircraft has been dismissed.

2. The use of small lasers to blind combatants. The US Marine Corps recently added expensive “dazzlers” to its machine guns that will prove more effective than the gun itself. (pictured)

3. The inability to replace munitions stocks in a timely manner. Most nations have limited stockpiles and the complexity of some make rapid production impossible. If the USA becomes involved in a major war that lasts longer than a month, it will have to pause for several months until new munitions are produced and delivered.

4. The humanitarian disaster that would result by disrupting the fragile economy of megacities. This occurred during World War II, but today’s big cities are ten times larger! Armies may face hoards of millions of starving people begging for help.

5. The millions of civilian vehicles on the world’s roads. It is impossible to tell if they are friend or foe unless inspected up close. Soldiers can use this to their advantage, which makes urban operations very dangerous for both civilians and soldiers.

6. The problem of thousands of commercial aircraft roaming the globe. Agents aboard can collect intelligence and these present long-range targeting problems for precision guided munitions that may kill hundreds of innocents.

8. Modern anti-tank weapons are equally effective anti-aircraft weapons against slower targets like low flying helicopters and aircraft transports. A helicopter assault or airborne drop near a modern army will be disastrous as anti-tank missiles shoot upwards and knock down aircraft.

9. Modern body armor has made 5.56mm and even 7.62mm bullets less lethal.

I've been reading your site for a long time. Some points on your response to Martyanov:

The USA should return to the method used before the 1980s where government organizations developed weapons and then contracted production to the private sector. Most of these military/government organizations still exist, but have been sidelined, so crap is developed by a free market profit seeking monopoly, like the F-35.

Is this really accurate? There was plenty of development by commercial organizations prior to the 1980s, and military arsenals have their own failure records. Examples of commercial successes in the past:

*Most aircraft produced until the F-111 (which ultimately matured into a fine aircraftt), and then afterwards the entire teen series of fighters as well as the A-10
*The original AR-15, which the army chose to screw up royally

Then we have examples of arsenal and lab failures such as:

*Refusing the .276 round for the M1 Garand and later insisting on the 7.62 NATO in contravention of the superior British alternative
*The aforementioned M16 screwup
*BuOrd's disgraceful WW2 torpedo foulup

Now one thing that has changed substantially is that most ship classes used to be developed by the Navy itself and its government yards, but now they're developed by contractors (badly, as shown by the Gerald Ford class, the Zumwalt class, and the LCS joke). But the old navy did solicit commercial designs as well.

Some more competition is needed. This can come from renewed development by arsenals, but also we need trust busting in the defense industry.

Program management is obviously a huge disaster, but who knows why? Cost-plus contracts? Officers and politicians effectively playing for the contractors rather than the country? Ignorance, as Martyanov suggested?

2. The use of small lasers to blind combatants. The US Marine Corps recently added expensive “dazzlers” to its machine guns that will prove more effective than the gun itself. (pictured)

Skeptical. Against trained infantry gunfire is largely suppressive. The enemy is destroyed by indirect fires and making use of microterrain to maneuver.

That said adds another useful weapon for relatively little weight, and depending on the power of the laser and the weather that day it could outperform gunfire at longer ranges.

3. The inability to replace munitions stocks in a timely manner. Most nations have limited stockpiles and the complexity of some make rapid production impossible. If the USA becomes involved in a major war that lasts longer than a month, it will have to pause for several months until new munitions are produced and delivered.

This was an issue even in the Cold War (NATO officially planned on 30 days warstocks, but based on the experience of the Yom Kippur war it probably had one-two weeks). It was also an issue for all combatants in the early stages of both world wars.

It seems difficult to plan for this, especially as politicians are likely to balk at huge warstocks which must be frequently replaced or refurbished.

More important may be simply maintaining a strong industrial base--woops.

5. The millions of civilian vehicles on the world’s roads. It is impossible to tell if they are friend or foe unless inspected up close. Soldiers can use this to their advantage, which makes urban operations very dangerous for both civilians and soldiers.

This, incidentally, also makes the interdiction mission for airpower that was so successful in the summer of 1944 effectively useless against any industrialized opponent.

In the summer of 1944 we had 11,000 fighters (as well as medium bombers, unsure how many) in Western Europe facing a few thousand German trucks and a small number of rail lines.

In a modern conflict we'd have a few hundred fighters and attack aircraft against
millions of trucks. Modern aircraft can attack more targets successfully, but the disparity is too huge to overcome.

9. Modern body armor has made 5.56mm and even 7.62mm bullets less lethal.

This is solvable problem in my view. Increase the sectional density and length of the bullet, and increase muzzle velocity.

Explosive and raufoss rounds might work as well, though the small size of bullets makes me skeptical.

Precision-guided glide weapons of relatively small size (e.g. 40mm in diameter) are another option.

You also don't need to kill an opponent to achieve mission kill, and even someone in hard-kill body armor will be suppressed by gunfire which then allows for attack by indirect fires.

10. Fleets of surface ships cannot hide for long in big oceans.

Embarrassingly the USN's official response to the Chinese demonstration of an antiship ballistic missile was that battlegroups would be hard to find. Sure.

Even if that were true, to attack the enemy on land the battlegroups must get close to shore, where they are easily found and attacked.

The USN basically stopped even bothering to defend its surface fleet against serious opponents after the cancellation of the F-111B.

The F-111B was a logical response to the threat of Soviet naval aviation. With a combat range of over 2,000 nautical miles on internal fuel, it could credibly keep Soviet maritime patrol bombers out of launch range for their anti-ship missiles (which were to be armed with tactical nuclear warheads).

The replacement F-14 only had a range of about 500 nautical miles. While a fine aircraft in many respect, it was useless in its planned role of fleet defense.

Advanced long-range SAMs could do the job instead of long-range interceptors, but the US lags Russia badly here and has no long-range SAMs of any kind.

This leaves missile defense and CIWS (where the US also lags many foreign nations, even small European ones!) to protect the fleet.

Good luck with that.

Serious things that might defend the fleet:

*Long-range interceptors
*Long-range SAMs (USN equivalent of S-300/400/500 family)
*High energy microwaves (with enough energy a bubble field could destroy missile electronics)
*Upgraded and more numerous CIWS, ideally with lasers and rail guns if they ever get those to work
*Actually armoring ships

But even if all of these expensive technologies work as intended, they'll still vulnerable to being overwhelmed by salvos as well as nuclear warheads.

Probably we should accept that Karl Doenitz was right about the future of naval warfare--nothing on the surface.

The navy should instead be made up mostly of submarines and long range aircraft. Surface forces would be limited to mine sweepers, ASW corvettes, and green/brown water small boats (like the LCS except not expensive and trash).

The entire amphibious assault concept is ridiculous as well. Amphibious assaults were hard enough to pull off in WW2 against inferior opponents hard pressed on other fronts.

Against a prepared opponent with modern technology they will fail spectacularly.

And against an UNPREPARED opponent no specialized and expensive amphibious forces are not needed. They can be quickly conducted using improvised equipment as the Germans did in 1917 and again in 1940.

The "free market" corruption begins on a level of personal dignity (morals). Both morality and patriotism are sorely lacking by the current US/UK power elite that has become a chimera composed of Cheney and the Lobby. We are dealing not so much with a "fraudulent" program as with deeply immoral bloody opportunists. http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2018/03/syria-leaks-suites-propaganda-and-dividends-presented-by-publius-tacitus.html#comment-6a00d8341c72e153ef01bb09f8f311970d
From comment section. David Habakkuk said: " … In relation to the ‘White Helmets’, the ‘case for the prosecution’ was set out in detail in a presentation by the journalist Vanessa Beeley to the Swiss Press Club in Geneva back in November, with Richard Labévière also involved – available, together with links to a range of supporting material, at http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/11/28/vanessa-beeley-presents-new-white-helmets-expose-to-swiss-press-club-geneva/.
The first appearance of the ‘Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media’ was in a letter submitted to the ‘Comment is Free’ section of the ‘Guardian’, and not published by them, in response to an article by Olivia Solon which attacked Beeley among others.
It claimed that critical discussion of the White Helmets in Syria has been ‘propagated online by a network of anti-imperialist activists, conspiracy theorists and trolls with the support of the Russian government’.
The article rejected by the ‘CiF’ was reproduced, together with an account of the failure of the ‘Guardian’ either to publish it or to defend their decision not to, on Tim Hayward’s blog in January. It contains links to material which calls into question the role of the ‘White Helmets.’
(See https://timhayward.wordpress.com/2018/01/12/the-guardian-white-helmets-and-silenced-comment/ ) …
Concluding his demolition of the ‘Joint Intelligence Mechanism’ report into Khan Sheikhoun, also published on Hayward’s blog, Paul McKeigue writes: ‘The weight of evidence favouring the hypothesis of a
managed massacre over a chemical attack has obvious implications also for the role of the White Helmets in this incident.’
(See https://timhayward.wordpress.com/2017/12/22/khan-sheikhoun-chemical-attack-guest-blog-featuring-paul-mckeigues-reassessment/ .)
This brings us back to a critical question about the ‘false flag’ chemical attacks in Syria, and in particular Khan Sheikhoun – that of whether the involvement of elements in Western élites is purely a matter of ‘ex post facto’ involvement in cover-ups, or whether ‘ex ante’ involvement in planning these operations may also be at issue.
And, of course, in relation to Benjamin Norman and other FCO people, prominent among them Matthew Rycroft and Boris Johnson, a question really does arise as to: ‘What did they know and when did they know it?’"
- Olivia Solon -- a presstitute for Guardian
- Benjamin Norman -- a "diplomat" at the British Embassy in DC
- Matthew Rycroft -- a British "diplomat" at UN
- Boris Johnston -- a person of easy morals and Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, UK

The USA should return to the method used before the 1980s where government organizations developed weapons and then contracted production to the private sector.

This is a blatant admission that free market economy which is the source of innovation and efficiency is a hoax and a failure. Free market economy is nothing but a façade and a 3 Cup Scam to stealing from the people en masse without raising a fuss.

"Russian technology is not superior"
No need to read any further than that. You demonstrate typically American arrogance and delusion, refusing to admit that someone else may be more advanced than you in any sphere of human endeavor. You are just pathetic losers.

Soviet/Russian jet propulsion technology was and is superior to the US. IE: Remember when songbird Hanoi McCain was insisting on Russian sanctions back in 2015-2016 . US private and military contractors did not have any equivalent tech to put on their satellite launchers. They were suggesting to use the Indian one cheaper but not as reliable.

I recall, a post around two years or so, of a column related to the Russian rocket engine. I believe it was written by Lockheed-Martin {not sure if they were the author} that they had purchased 100 Russian rocket engines, stating that we were, at a minimum, at least decade behind the Russian system. Seems to me we just never admit that anyone, anywhere could be better than us. It is not only foolish, it is top limit dangerous.

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Deafening silence in all of the US media on this issue. Everyone is shell shocked and stunned. And since America is a fiscal basket case which will be soon forced to start cutting military spending, the technological gap with Russia will only increase.

Nobody here is stunned or shocked. They are too arrogant and stupid to understand anything. In any case, they have more important issues to deal with, like allowing men who think they are women use the little girl’s bathroom.

You say that everyone is shell-shocked and stunned. I suspect that most Americans are neither shell-shocked nor stunned. The level of engagement with the real world is more than shockingly low in America. I suspect that most Americans have heard little at all about President Putin's speech and that those who have heard of it have no idea of its implications.

Russian technology is not superior, but they are not burdened with as much "free market" corruption as the USA. Billions of American dollars are wasted on fraudulent programs like lasers:

http://www.g2mil.com/Laser_Scams.htm

and the SM-3 missile defense scam:

http://www.g2mil.com/NMD_Fraud.htm

The USA should return to the method used before the 1980s where government organizations developed weapons and then contracted production to the private sector. Most of these military/government organizations still exist, but have been sidelined, so crap is developed by a free market profit seeking monopoly, like the F-35.

In my book free on-line book:

http://www.g2mil.com/war.htm

I list the major areas that modern military forces choose to ignore:

1. The lethality of of precision guided munitions to easily destroy ultra-expensive ships, tanks, and aircraft has been dismissed.

2. The use of small lasers to blind combatants. The US Marine Corps recently added expensive "dazzlers" to its machine guns that will prove more effective than the gun itself. (pictured)

3. The inability to replace munitions stocks in a timely manner. Most nations have limited stockpiles and the complexity of some make rapid production impossible. If the USA becomes involved in a major war that lasts longer than a month, it will have to pause for several months until new munitions are produced and delivered.

4. The humanitarian disaster that would result by disrupting the fragile economy of megacities. This occurred during World War II, but today's big cities are ten times larger! Armies may face hoards of millions of starving people begging for help.

5. The millions of civilian vehicles on the world's roads. It is impossible to tell if they are friend or foe unless inspected up close. Soldiers can use this to their advantage, which makes urban operations very dangerous for both civilians and soldiers.

6. The problem of thousands of commercial aircraft roaming the globe. Agents aboard can collect intelligence and these present long-range targeting problems for precision guided munitions that may kill hundreds of innocents.

8. Modern anti-tank weapons are equally effective anti-aircraft weapons against slower targets like low flying helicopters and aircraft transports. A helicopter assault or airborne drop near a modern army will be disastrous as anti-tank missiles shoot upwards and knock down aircraft.

9. Modern body armor has made 5.56mm and even 7.62mm bullets less lethal.

How did you know that? As for me, graduated optic-electronic division of an institute, I know that all experiments in 1970-1980th with powerfull lasers
in atmosphere weren't successful due to heterogeneous structure of atmosphere and breakdown phenomenon in it.
I didn't follow the new achievements, but those problems seem to me to be irresistible and so usage of lasers is limited to small distances in atmosphere. In space - yes, it could be used.

I am sorry Andrei, but I am not convinced of the Russian technological superiority. I believe that the Americans will produce even scarier videos of attacks on Russia, than those used by Putin in his presentation – showing attacks on US.

In order to ensure complete fairness, I propose that the winner of this technological war be decided by the Academy of motion pictures and should be awarded at the next year’s Oscars with a statue for best special effects.

History – as recorded by that biggest arbiter of truth – the Hollywood movies – clearly shows that more Germans died in the American made movies than in the Russian ones – thus it’s obvious that US won that war pretty much single-handedly.

Similarly – if Hollywood produces better videos this time around too – the winning decision should go to US and Russia has no business messing with them.

Of course, there will be skeptics that will say that US is flirting with disaster by trying to bully Russia – based on some historical precedence. I don’t really think that US are flirting with disaster, I think that they are having a full blown affair.

You should leave humor to professionals, you are clearly not very good at it. But your sad, little effort at negating uncomfortable reality is appreciated, nevertheless. I’d do it too if I was spending $700B a year and had nothing to show for it, except for cartoons and Hollywood propaganda.

In the 1970s, NATO sponsored seminars on the Soviet Union's military weaponry. I attended the seminars. We had "hands-on" access to Soviet tanks and other equipment. I was impressed. It was the biggest "bang for the buck" as opposed to the US model of letting private, for-profit contractors design and cost weapons for you. We left the seminars with a heartfelt fear of the Soviet Union's military capability. BTW: Due to a few soldiers going "postal", we were not allowed access to our unit weapons except in the case of an emergency ... or, maybe a war.

After 20 years in the Air Force in air operations and 26 years as a government contractor in finance and procurement, I offer the F-35 as the paradigm of the "death of the US military". Bad design compounded by troubled procurement compounded by non-stop lobbying by politicians and contracts to ignore the obvious = a procurement disaster.

The F-111 program proved that it was not possible to develop a common design that could meet the requirements of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. Carriers vs. land-based airfields. It cannot be done. The contracts and politicians made the case that it could be done. The F-35 is the dismal result.

Russian weapons are designed by the military and then outsourced to government-industries or private contractors for production. US weapons are designed by contractors to maximize profits and then forced on the military services by politicians. Go figure the outcomes.

I've often thought there should be international war games where, for example, the Russians are authorized to launch a missile "attack" on some deserted area with dummy warheads, and we're obliged to shoot them down to thwart the attack, and vice versa.

You seem to experience the stage 1 of shock syndrome - denial.
And here’s the spoon of reality for you - whether you are convinced or not is irrelevant. What’s relevant is that Russia is superior to US in technology - the stagnation of 90’s is far behind. The work of USSR era has resurfaced and the new breakthroughs tha are made. For decades, US dependent on foreign brains to continue R&D. Russia has historically produced domestic talent. US education system is in ruins, not only it can’t produce value, it has no chance of catching up. This article spells the truth - US is a self-proclaimed hegemony that resorts to bullying to disguise the gaping lack of gray matter. An improvement can be made - for US to stop the pretense and direct it’s respurces to domestic improvement. That accomplished, you wouldn’t need to be a bully. Equal partnership is always better than a war and brought to world standards, I don’t see why US couldn’t be a trustworthy contributor to humanity.

I suggest re-reading the announcement, and grasp implications. So far, very few analysts have tackled the technological gap. Scientific gap. And battlefield implications. Just the sub drone at such depths and speed insures that no missile carrying submarine can outrun it, ir endanger it. All subs encircling Russia are put on notice. All aircraft carrier groups, cruisers and destroyers, put on notice. All coastal facilities, ports, docks, shipyards, command and control centers on notice. And no known vulnerability of the drone. Kinzhal is putying on notice all land based missile defence, cun offence installation. Cruise missiles with unlimited range and supersonic capabilities made possible by miniturizing submarine nuclear reactor 100 times, and the new alloys that allow for the meteor like winged missiles fall in a near plasma state, while still being under remote control.
The advance in hypersonic capabilities is in itself groundbreaking. These are all changes in warfare as we know it.

And it is also not wise to assume that it will take years for all these technologies to be available — as announced, all existing lauchers, sylos etc have been retrofitted to handle new weapons. It will be wise to assume that the ling range cruise missiles are already skimming ocean surfaces.

First, some heads should roll, and intelligence taken back from the privatized, profitmaking corporate airheads. It looks like we have been flying blind.

Only weeks ago, Biden made a speech at Munich Security conference, where he ridiculed Russia and its economy, as if Western sanctions have done the damage. Such silly messages may have worked knce, when Rusdia’s population did not travel, and know anything about outside world. Now, any Russian knows about the epidemic of homelessness in UK, or a catastrophy of EU membership that is Greece. And the fact, US rating agencies have just jncreased Russia’s rating. How stupid these biasts look like now — as Russia’s grain exports are supplying nearly half of the workd’s import demand. And non-GMO to boot.

But we are not done with nation building yet. In Syria, planning to sit around and nation build Kurdistan. Planning to sit around in Iraq — just in case. Planning to stay gorever in Afghanistan and Lybia, in Somalia and Niger, and over 800 bases around globe. Just supplies cost millions per solldier a year. Nd sll the forward deployment resulting in wear and tear in both equipment and people. This 19th century empire building is meeting 22nd century warfare. Knowing that we have swamp bittom feeders in bureacracy — not just military — we are facing some dangerous times. We have Nikki Haley in UN screeching for some military action, as a drunk gambler not being fully cognizant of the enormity if his loss.

Now looking back at Trump’s idea to engage Russia — it is clear ghat he was right all along.

The teeter-totter of dissemination of the masses... political BS that separates us from our humanity!?^%... The elite Machiavellian illuminati...the chosen ones and the hyper dense filaments of light... who are they...? the untouchables of the golden spoon in mouth group...royals of history that have raped pillaged and controlled humanity from every the seat of power...yes the unseen hand of political-economic warfare...they only want wars they can live through....( they sit around a round table)...yes planning using us as vessels to exterminate in mass... :)

Deafening silence in all of the US media on this issue. Everyone is shell shocked and stunned.

The usually loquacious Chief Twitter is silent, and so are the media which is very unusual. The automatic MSM reaction is to attack anything coming from Russia, and present it as a threat, but this time, remarkably, it really is a threat, and they need some time to work it out.

This shows that 1) the US media doesn’t have independent opinions – they’re propagandists, and they are currently awaiting instructions on the Party Line. 2) the US Deep State is in a quandary: Logically they need to back off, but they are fully invested in the “Russian menace” theme tied to planned attacks on Syria and Iran.

The complications are that the US (now publicly) looks at a lot more at risk than it did on the 28th February (which invites an America First/ Israel First split in US policy making) and that the US military now have the issue out in the open in military terms (rather than the usual political terms ) with the risks fully exposed.

I am sorry Andrei, but I am not convinced of the Russian technological superiority. I believe that the Americans will produce even scarier videos of attacks on Russia, than those used by Putin in his presentation – showing attacks on US.

In order to ensure complete fairness, I propose that the winner of this technological war be decided by the Academy of motion pictures and should be awarded at the next year’s Oscars with a statue for best special effects.

History – as recorded by that biggest arbiter of truth - the Hollywood movies – clearly shows that more Germans died in the American made movies than in the Russian ones – thus it’s obvious that US won that war pretty much single-handedly.

Similarly – if Hollywood produces better videos this time around too – the winning decision should go to US and Russia has no business messing with them.

Of course, there will be skeptics that will say that US is flirting with disaster by trying to bully Russia – based on some historical precedence. I don’t really think that US are flirting with disaster, I think that they are having a full blown affair.

You should leave humor to professionals, you are clearly not very good at it. But your sad, little effort at negating uncomfortable reality is appreciated, nevertheless. I’d do it too if I was spending $700B a year and had nothing to show for it, except for cartoons and Hollywood propaganda.

Excellent article. I also payed attention to Daggers specifically also because unlike those “bizarre” nukes they can be used now. However , I am skeptical about American elites getting it at this stage. The process went too far. if this is Stalingrad, then next logical step is required. Which is important rather as psychological step, not that Russia would have needed it were USA a reasonable state. Placing daggers next to USA would have immediate psychological impact and there is nothing US Navy can do now unlike Cuban crisis. Having all of USA within 5 min flight, what bull eye on my dears backs can be better thought of.

If history shows us anything, that is that the US elite will NOT get it. They cannot be reasoned with. They might pretend to negotiate, perhaps to stall for time and then stab Russia in the back.
If one operation could be done to eradicate most of their gear, that would do world peace a great service.

I am sorry Andrei, but I am not convinced of the Russian technological superiority. I believe that the Americans will produce even scarier videos of attacks on Russia, than those used by Putin in his presentation – showing attacks on US.

In order to ensure complete fairness, I propose that the winner of this technological war be decided by the Academy of motion pictures and should be awarded at the next year’s Oscars with a statue for best special effects.

History – as recorded by that biggest arbiter of truth - the Hollywood movies – clearly shows that more Germans died in the American made movies than in the Russian ones – thus it’s obvious that US won that war pretty much single-handedly.

Similarly – if Hollywood produces better videos this time around too – the winning decision should go to US and Russia has no business messing with them.

Of course, there will be skeptics that will say that US is flirting with disaster by trying to bully Russia – based on some historical precedence. I don’t really think that US are flirting with disaster, I think that they are having a full blown affair.

And what is your field of expertize in technology, since you are so adamant, that the Russian are no match for Americans?

I’m not someone who has access to top secrert military technology. I do however understand, to a certain extent, Russian thinking. Which is very distinct in several important ways than U.S. thinking. This basically means that whilst the west falls about laughing at the failures of Russian prototypical weapons systems whilst in development, eventually they don’t anymore and work with an enviable reliability. E.G. You can leave any Russian attack helicopter out in the open overnight in minus 20 degree celcius and the thing will start up the following morning, try that with an Apache. Likewise they can be fixed with limited field tools because a grounded weapon is a useless one. Did you knoiw that EVERY U.S. military sattelite launched since 2000 has been with Russian Rocket motors? I wonder why that might be.

“In other words, Russia brought the gun to a knife fight and it seems that this is the only way to deal with the United States today.”

That’s a good summary. One that even the supposedly more moderate commentators in the West fail to get so whether it will be enough to bring back to reason the vain and greedy loons ruling the Western world remains to be seen.

There are several well-grounded sources claimed that Kinzhal is just an aeroballistic version of the land-based Iskander missile. If so, I’m amazed with the range increase, from 500 km to 2000km. I know that this may be given by changing “initial conditions” from 0-km heigth, 0-mach to 20-km height 2+mach provided by the MiG-31BM. I consider the Tu-22M3 as a more “logical carrier” since, it can replace the liquid fueled Kh-22/Kh-32 by Kinzhal and so a bomber can launch up to 3 aeroballistic missiles. In such a case (10 km height 2- mach initial conditions) what will be the practical range? 1000km? MiG-31BM will provide the extreme range but you will need at least a dozen of them to attack a carrier group. Tu-22M3 can trade range for a higher fire volume. I suspect also that the missile is aimed at circumventing the INF treaty just by air-launching the missile toward land targets in west Europe.

There are several well-grounded sources claimed that Kinzhal is just an aeroballistic version of the land-based Iskander missile.

This is precisely what is stated in the article--Kinzhal is Iskander on steroids, very large doses of steroids.

MiG-31BM will provide the extreme range but you will need at least a dozen of them to attack a carrier group.

The number of leakers in this case is very easy to calculate--because probabilities of intercept of even a single Kinzhal are approaching zero. I can give you one (of very many) scenarios how the CBG can be disposed of using just 3-4 Kinzhals. A salvo at Aegis (SM-3, 6) escorts (DDGs, CGs) which removes air defense umbrella and after that let 3M54 or Zircon finish off a defenseless CVN. Simple as that. You can mix and match here whatever strike force you want--X-32 by Tu-22M3 or whatever floats your boat.

Quote -" This failure to bargain does explain Gorbachev, Shevardnadze and their “team” being extremely unwelcoming of Soviet military professionals during April 1987 negotiations with Americans. In fact, the Soviet military was excluded from negotiations altogether—a first indicator of shady intentions on Gorbachev’s part. The compromise reached was so one-sided that even Gorbachev himself started to feel very uncomfortable. He expressed his concerns to…US Secretary of State George Shultz, instead of conferring with his own military.

In fact, Gorbachev’s behavior was absolutely bizarre and betrayed for any trained eye his desperate desire to be liked by the combined West regardless of costs for his own country."

How did you know that? As for me, graduated optic-electronic division of an institute, I know that all experiments in 1970-1980th with powerfull lasers in atmosphere weren’t successful due to heterogeneous structure of atmosphere and breakdown phenomenon in it. I didn’t follow the new achievements, but those problems seem to me to be irresistible and so usage of lasers is limited to small distances in atmosphere. In space – yes, it could be used.

Deafening silence in all of the US media on this issue. Everyone is shell shocked and stunned. And since America is a fiscal basket case which will be soon forced to start cutting military spending, the technological gap with Russia will only increase.

Nobody here is stunned or shocked. They are too arrogant and stupid to understand anything. In any case, they have more important issues to deal with, like allowing men who think they are women use the little girl’s bathroom.

Dress Weave Haan Cole Women Sandal Genevieve White Black Russia is a real country, a true nation. It’s military has much more ethnic cohesion than ours ever will again. I wonder what the long term impact of that will be.

You typed my first thought upon reading the article. No need to wonder the long term impact. Instead, prepare as best you can for you and yours.
Unless Trump stops immigration/increases the re-emigration of foreigners. Also the obvious security measures: no Chinese nationals working in our research universities; reforming the make-work program we call the military budget; end "social engineering" in the military; teach real science at all grade levels - but only to those with adequate IQ, don't waste resources on "equality"; etc.
The window is closing.
If immigration is not both stopped and reversed, if AA is not stopped, America ceases.

This "Russia as uber threat w/ hidden super weapons" is a FARCE. Please stop it. Economy size of Spain. Borders are 10s of 1000s miles wide open to infiltration/attack, low population density and cohesion. Just messing with daily oil barrel sales would be enough to wipe them dry without firing a shot. The rest is HYPE to create that enemy we need for WW3 military budget buildup. In Syria? Their best ICBMs have been abject FAILURE. Not buying this latest attempt at Cold War renewed meme. First Cold War was FAKE- this one more so. Carroll Quigley the god on this tired issue. Also Antony Sutton

Vladimir Putin’s March 1st, 2018 address to Russia’s Federal Assembly was not about Russia’s upcoming presidential elections, as many in the election-obsessed West suggest.

Andrei, of cource, he was about “Russia’s upcoming presidential elections”. It’s absolutely clear, and he did very good step in election sense. Majority of us (me including) were impressed and being tired of US bullying, improved our vision of Putin. So locally he certainly won. All except some true liberasts who are screaming like a pigs in the slaughterhouse, we all got it with satisfactiond and pride. As for me I have some doubts in nuclear powered missile and probably speed of nuke submarine seems be exagerated, but who knows. Even in case of fake/exageration such trolling makes sense.

But I traced the reactions of West MSM and in comments to that BS – MSM are writing now – Russia threats, Russia started Cold War, Russia started an arms race … seems like 80% of readers aggree and have totally clean of any thinking brains. I do support Putin’s discovering the reality for the common West, but I’m afraid we got even more close to that nuke abyss.

Great analysis and perspective. A few points, first there are plenty of skeptics I suggest a real world demonstration of some of these new weapon platforms will be necessary to prove their existence. Second will Russia use their new and potentially superior position to offer protection to its neighbours and eventually kick America out of Eurasia. Finally, if these new weapons are the game changer on the battlefield the author suggests then the real fire works might occur in economic sphere, without the threat of military action against them how many countries stop using the US dollar for trade and US treasuries for reserves.

Second will Russia use their new and potentially superior position to offer protection to its neighbours and eventually kick America out of Eurasia.

As Syria's example shows, one of the major Russian exports of the future will be, in fact--already is, a political stability and defense against "regime changes". This "product" will be in a very high demand.

A great set of questions on implications, although no-one has clear answers. Naturally, your last question/challenge is by far the most important:

without the threat of military action against them how many countries (will) stop using the US dollar for trade and US treasuries for reserves

The whole US house of cards would come tumbling down. This would actually be much quicker and much worse than selling your oil in non-petro dollars, the crime for which Hussein was hanged and Ghadafi was bayoneted in the ass.

Maybe 1 March will be marked in history as the true beginning of the end of an era.

I had much more confidence in what you have to say before you started writing that the IDF Air Force was destroyed/cowed by the “Syrian air defense” systems, not to mention the assertion that Russian mercenaries only exist in Western propaganda.

Putin’s speech was brilliant. The neocons couldn’t have asked for better content. A CIA writer like Tom Friedman couldn’t glorify militarism any better. The US has no choice but to ramp up defense spending to even more extreme levels to counter the new Russian threat.

Henry Kissinger's first book, on the Napoleonic Wars, explains Kissinger's foreign policy better than any of his memoirs, and is striking as an early display of brilliance and authority

Kissinger has always been influenced by Munich, if not always directly or humanely. His and President Richard Nixon's opening to China in order to undermine the Soviet Union while they sought détente with Moscow; their unwillingness to quit Vietnam without first wreaking havoc and spilling blood; their support of odious yet pro-American regimes in Greece and Chile; and their brilliantly executed face-off with Syria and the Soviet Union in 1970, at the time of the terrorist challenge to Jordan's pro-Western regime -- all flowed to a significant extent from Kissinger's determination to avoid the slightest show of weakness, for which read "appeasement."
Kissinger regularly mixed violence and the threat of it with diplomacy, so that the diplomacy had credibility. He preserved what he saw as the legitimate order, in which the Soviet Union was both contained and accepted, so that revolutionary chaos was confined to the edges of the superpower battlefield, in the Third World. [emphasis added]
. . .

When, in 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, Kissinger argued for military force against Saddam Hussein. The legitimate order in the Gulf had been disrupted by a revolutionary chieftain; to react merely with sanctions would constitute appeasement, and Kissinger said as much.

part 1: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/06/kissinger-metternich-and-realism/377625/

part 2: https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/99jun/9906kissinger2.htm

Yes, thank God for Russia. The world enjoyed their nearly a whole century's worth of keeping everyone on edge and their KGB poisoning U.S. institutions. Unfortunately for them, the poisoning of those institutions is largely why the U.S. is currently so sick, and therefore incapable of reassessing its relationship with Russia in a more positive direction.

This is one of the best articles that I have recently read. The validity of the points made is enhanced by some superb expressions and descriptions (pop-military culture, American strategic kitchen etc.) Eminemtly readable. Well done!

From William Mallinson, author of ‘The Danger of Geopolitics to International Relations: Obsession with the Heartland’.

Thank you for your kind words, William. My upcoming book deals with those issues in much more expanded form. The title is: "Losing Military Supremacy: The Myopia of American Strategic Planning." It is not often in one's life that one begins to realize in terror that present West's in general and US in particular so called "elites" and policy makers are for the most part ignorant amateurs.

There are several well-grounded sources claimed that Kinzhal is just an aeroballistic version of the land-based Iskander missile. If so, I’m amazed with the range increase, from 500 km to 2000km. I know that this may be given by changing “initial conditions” from 0-km heigth, 0-mach to 20-km height 2+mach provided by the MiG-31BM.
I consider the Tu-22M3 as a more “logical carrier” since, it can replace the liquid fueled Kh-22/Kh-32 by Kinzhal and so a bomber can launch up to 3 aeroballistic missiles. In such a case (10 km height 2- mach initial conditions) what will be the practical range? 1000km?
MiG-31BM will provide the extreme range but you will need at least a dozen of them to attack a carrier group. Tu-22M3 can trade range for a higher fire volume.
I suspect also that the missile is aimed at circumventing the INF treaty just by air-launching the missile toward land targets in west Europe.

There are several well-grounded sources claimed that Kinzhal is just an aeroballistic version of the land-based Iskander missile.

This is precisely what is stated in the article–Kinzhal is Iskander on steroids, very large doses of steroids.

MiG-31BM will provide the extreme range but you will need at least a dozen of them to attack a carrier group.

The number of leakers in this case is very easy to calculate–because probabilities of intercept of even a single Kinzhal are approaching zero. I can give you one (of very many) scenarios how the CBG can be disposed of using just 3-4 Kinzhals. A salvo at Aegis (SM-3, 6) escorts (DDGs, CGs) which removes air defense umbrella and after that let 3M54 or Zircon finish off a defenseless CVN. Simple as that. You can mix and match here whatever strike force you want–X-32 by Tu-22M3 or whatever floats your boat.

Quote: "From a national security perspective, Putin’s claims of hypersonic weapons should not be underestimated but should be analyzed in an attempt to parse fact from fiction.

"The team of analysts at The Drive precisely did that, and made several conclusions: In particular, one of the weapons Putin mentioned in his speech was an air-launched hypersonic anti-ship missile launched from a Mikoyan MiG-31 Foxhound. Upon closer examination, the Drive team found the hypersonic weapon closely resembles the Iskander short-range ballistic missile."

End quotation.

I wonder if Putin will deploy the laser system to Syria, now that America is making threats.

"A potential decision by Washington to take new military actions against Damascus would mark the second US strike on Syria in less than a year."

I had much more confidence in what you have to say before you started writing that the IDF Air Force was destroyed/cowed by the "Syrian air defense" systems, not to mention the assertion that Russian mercenaries only exist in Western propaganda.

I will have to learn to live now with your loss of confidence in me. I’ll try.

Maybe anything is worthless speculation, but I think they do not believe Putin, as per his statement, will use force unless Russia faces nuclear attack.

Hence my hope for Russian "shock and awe" in Syria using the laser tech (if a laser pointer blinds commercial jetliners per news reports in the U.S.) if America's ISIS supporting air force bombs Syrians again; I'm an American but this military that supports mass murderers should be stopped. Hence my earlier concern did America have anything to do downing the prop plane that allegedly carried Russian pilots stationed in Syria.

On a more optimistic note, Donald Miller writes "Bomb-dropping airplanes made battleships obsolete in World War II, and hypersonic nuclear-powered cruise missiles and nuclear-powered underwater drones will do the same thing to aircraft carriers in World War III."

What I find both galling and frightening, which proves Andrei’s point about America’s power elites, “are simply not qualified to grasp the complexity, the nature and application of military force. They simply have no reference points,” is proven by today’s article, which infuriates me in its sophomoric arrogance, posted on The Hill by “Tom Nichols…a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and an adjunct professor at the Harvard Extension School.”

“The only thing that could have made Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech about Russia’s nuclear arsenal better is if he had given it wearing a Mao jacket and stroking a white cat, like the evil character Blofeld from a James Bond movie.

“Putin’s theatrics represented a farrago of theater, fantasy and bluster. For some reason, Putin said he was unveiling a nuclear-powered cruise missile with virtually unlimited range. This is a strange thing to claim, for several reasons. It is technologically difficult to do (which is why the Americans never built one, even after considering it more than 50 years ago), but more to the point, it serves no purpose. Why build a cruise missile that takes hours to reach its target when intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) or submarine-launched ballistic missiles can reach the same targets in minutes?

“Putin presented animation of the new missile, mostly consisting of computer graphics that looked like it could have been a cheap 1980s game called “Microsoft Cruise Missile Simulator.” The video showed a cruise missile flying a long distance while following terrain and avoiding obstacles. In other words, it was doing what we’ve known cruise missiles can do for more than 40 years.

“Even if the Russians can build this nuclear white elephant, it’s not clear what it’s supposed to do. Like the “invincible” hypersonic missile that Putin claims can evade all defenses, it’s a solution searching for a problem: Russian ICBM warheads, like all ICBM warheads, already land at hypersonic speed, and there are no functioning missile defenses in the United States that have any real chance of stopping them.

“Putin is unveiling this next generation of weapons from Drax Industries for two reasons. Most important, Putin is running for reelection, and while he has no chance of losing, he needs to gloss over his regime’s economic failures by legitimizing his rule in the militaristic themes he knows best as a product of the Soviet system.

“Whatever hopes people might have had about Putin as a new kind of leader back in 1999, he has turned into a standard-issue Soviet kleptocrat leading a comical (but nonetheless lethal) cult of personality. The man who began his time in office with a candid assessment of Russia’s future challenges is now a whining autocrat who blames all of his country’s misfortunes on sinister forces in the “West” and particularly the United States and NATO.

“Second, Putin embodies a gnawing and well-deserved insecurity at the root of the Russian defense establishment. The Russian military still relies on conscription and is still a nightmare of poor training, hazing and dodgy equipment. It is improving quickly — which should actually reassure the West, since a military in free-fall is more dangerous than a professional and competent force — but it is so weak that Putin knows he must rely on nuclear threats to punch above its weight.”

*** End Excerpt***

I think these excerpts prove the idiot has no idea that his much beloved carrier groups are now effectively rendered useless. Either he’s in denial or he’s that stupid or he’s lying, preaching to the “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” choir.

Don't be--this is the "level" of current American "national security expertdom" which is a mix of ignorance, arrogance and huge insecurity. There are, of course, many fluffy "credentials" but for the most part those people are nothing more than empty suites, such as this "professor" from Naval War College. Actually, the butt-hurt oozes from his filled with BS piece. I think they got the message.

The Academies have long been staffed by Cult. Marxist faculties. That is why you see so many military officers who seem to have astonishingly Liberal political and cultural views. The long march through the institutions has swept over all the major institutions in the West including the military. The military has been used as the perfect vehicle for instituting the changes the Left wants because it is based on strict obedience to orders from above. From racial integration in the forties to gay rights, tranny rights, combat roles for women, and racially equalized outcomes, the Left has used the military as the cutting edge. I remember an article in American Spectator on Clinton’s first inauguration. There was a flyover of military aircraft at the ceremony. The Spectator reporter saw a Clinton campaigner jeering at the planes, and one of his comrades interrupted him saying, “Hey, it’s cool, those are ours now”.

Yeah that guy is off his nut. Look what Russia has done for Syria against all that terrorist support. Nothing short of a miracle with a skeleton force. Smart people love VVP. He's still human, but damn he gets shit done.

I believe you are missing the whole point here. The US left the ABM treaty (one of the keystones of world peace) and started the missile defense initiative both of them unilaterally. This was obviously viewed by Moscow as a threatening act, since is already proven, a Soviet era ICBM can in fact be intercepted. Moscow offered so much the West: after giving up to 20% of its territorry, bringing back home all of its troops from abroad and closing almost all of its bases abroad, it even proposed the US for Russia to join NATO in order to end any potential future competition again, but the US did not recognize the gesture from a “gentle man” who literally recognized the US as the winner of the Cold War and was willing to work together even by US terms. Instead of accepting the offer, the US decided to put try to put Russia in check (as in chess), jeopardizing its defense abilities by putting interceptors on its border, encircling Russia with bases, and pointing a gun on it with the prompt global strike proposal. Now after 17 years we see the exact opposite scenario, now the US is on check. Russia can defend itself with S-500 and other redundant system including lasers, plasma weapons and defense against hypersonic missile. And can overcome any air defense existing now or to be bild on the next 30 years. You missed the point of the cruise missiles with infinite range: they fly low enough to overcome existing radars and are much cheaper than ICBMs (that are detectable). By the way, you will be able to check it on the World Cup, Russia’s economy is going well indeed: thanks to the West sanctions, products that were imported before are now produced in Russia, developing internal economy.

Are you sure about the “steroids”? It seems that’s just the air-launched Iskander. May be, Kinzhal is just Iskander with a bigger solid-fuel load. It seems strange that you can increase four-fold the range just launching it from a Mig-31, even if it helps a lot.

Are you sure about the “steroids”? It seems that’s just the air-launched Iskander. May be,
Kinzhal is just Iskander with a bigger solid-fuel load. It seems strange that you can increase four-fold the range just launching it from a Mig-31, even if it helps a lot.

Isn't it what you have just describes is a definition of being on steroids?

Do you have info about the Avangar glider? I would love to know more about this thing.

No, I don't, and as strange as it sounds, it makes me quite happy. I am sure there are very many people today who would like to know more.

You should leave humor to professionals, you are clearly not very good at it. But your sad, little effort at negating uncomfortable reality is appreciated, nevertheless. I’d do it too if I was spending $700B a year and had nothing to show for it, except for cartoons and Hollywood propaganda.

March 1 2018 is Independence and Liberation Day for Humanity. PutinDAN or PutinDAY will be celebrated by freedom and self-respecting people everywhere. Spasiba to countless scientist and defense workers of RF. Spasiba Mr.Putin.

Russian technology is not superior, but they are not burdened with as much "free market" corruption as the USA. Billions of American dollars are wasted on fraudulent programs like lasers:

http://www.g2mil.com/Laser_Scams.htm

and the SM-3 missile defense scam:

http://www.g2mil.com/NMD_Fraud.htm

The USA should return to the method used before the 1980s where government organizations developed weapons and then contracted production to the private sector. Most of these military/government organizations still exist, but have been sidelined, so crap is developed by a free market profit seeking monopoly, like the F-35.

In my book free on-line book:

http://www.g2mil.com/war.htm

I list the major areas that modern military forces choose to ignore:

1. The lethality of of precision guided munitions to easily destroy ultra-expensive ships, tanks, and aircraft has been dismissed.

2. The use of small lasers to blind combatants. The US Marine Corps recently added expensive "dazzlers" to its machine guns that will prove more effective than the gun itself. (pictured)

3. The inability to replace munitions stocks in a timely manner. Most nations have limited stockpiles and the complexity of some make rapid production impossible. If the USA becomes involved in a major war that lasts longer than a month, it will have to pause for several months until new munitions are produced and delivered.

4. The humanitarian disaster that would result by disrupting the fragile economy of megacities. This occurred during World War II, but today's big cities are ten times larger! Armies may face hoards of millions of starving people begging for help.

5. The millions of civilian vehicles on the world's roads. It is impossible to tell if they are friend or foe unless inspected up close. Soldiers can use this to their advantage, which makes urban operations very dangerous for both civilians and soldiers.

6. The problem of thousands of commercial aircraft roaming the globe. Agents aboard can collect intelligence and these present long-range targeting problems for precision guided munitions that may kill hundreds of innocents.

8. Modern anti-tank weapons are equally effective anti-aircraft weapons against slower targets like low flying helicopters and aircraft transports. A helicopter assault or airborne drop near a modern army will be disastrous as anti-tank missiles shoot upwards and knock down aircraft.

9. Modern body armor has made 5.56mm and even 7.62mm bullets less lethal.

10. Fleets of surface ships cannot hide for long in big oceans.

There are skirmishes (Libya, Iraq, Syria etc) And than are wars of superpowers. Obviously You are a bit confused.

What I find both galling and frightening, which proves Andrei's point about America's power elites, "are simply not qualified to grasp the complexity, the nature and application of military force. They simply have no reference points," is proven by today's article, which infuriates me in its sophomoric arrogance, posted on The Hill by "Tom Nichols...a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and an adjunct professor at the Harvard Extension School."

"The only thing that could have made Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech about Russia’s nuclear arsenal better is if he had given it wearing a Mao jacket and stroking a white cat, like the evil character Blofeld from a James Bond movie.

"Putin’s theatrics represented a farrago of theater, fantasy and bluster. For some reason, Putin said he was unveiling a nuclear-powered cruise missile with virtually unlimited range. This is a strange thing to claim, for several reasons. It is technologically difficult to do (which is why the Americans never built one, even after considering it more than 50 years ago), but more to the point, it serves no purpose. Why build a cruise missile that takes hours to reach its target when intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) or submarine-launched ballistic missiles can reach the same targets in minutes?

"Putin presented animation of the new missile, mostly consisting of computer graphics that looked like it could have been a cheap 1980s game called “Microsoft Cruise Missile Simulator.” The video showed a cruise missile flying a long distance while following terrain and avoiding obstacles. In other words, it was doing what we’ve known cruise missiles can do for more than 40 years.

"Even if the Russians can build this nuclear white elephant, it’s not clear what it’s supposed to do. Like the “invincible” hypersonic missile that Putin claims can evade all defenses, it’s a solution searching for a problem: Russian ICBM warheads, like all ICBM warheads, already land at hypersonic speed, and there are no functioning missile defenses in the United States that have any real chance of stopping them.

"Putin is unveiling this next generation of weapons from Drax Industries for two reasons. Most important, Putin is running for reelection, and while he has no chance of losing, he needs to gloss over his regime’s economic failures by legitimizing his rule in the militaristic themes he knows best as a product of the Soviet system.

"Whatever hopes people might have had about Putin as a new kind of leader back in 1999, he has turned into a standard-issue Soviet kleptocrat leading a comical (but nonetheless lethal) cult of personality. The man who began his time in office with a candid assessment of Russia’s future challenges is now a whining autocrat who blames all of his country’s misfortunes on sinister forces in the “West” and particularly the United States and NATO.

"Second, Putin embodies a gnawing and well-deserved insecurity at the root of the Russian defense establishment. The Russian military still relies on conscription and is still a nightmare of poor training, hazing and dodgy equipment. It is improving quickly — which should actually reassure the West, since a military in free-fall is more dangerous than a professional and competent force — but it is so weak that Putin knows he must rely on nuclear threats to punch above its weight."

*** End Excerpt***

I think these excerpts prove the idiot has no idea that his much beloved carrier groups are now effectively rendered useless. Either he's in denial or he's that stupid or he's lying, preaching to the "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" choir.

I am appalled.

Unfortunately the neocons will need a demonstration. Hopefully this can be done without the sinking of an aircraft carrier and the inevitable escalation that would follow…

You should leave humor to professionals, you are clearly not very good at it. But your sad, little effort at negating uncomfortable reality is appreciated, nevertheless. I’d do it too if I was spending $700B a year and had nothing to show for it, except for cartoons and Hollywood propaganda.

This is one of the best articles that I have recently read. The validity of the points made is enhanced by some superb expressions and descriptions (pop-military culture, American strategic kitchen etc.) Eminemtly readable. Well done!

From William Mallinson, author of 'The Danger of Geopolitics to International Relations: Obsession with the Heartland'.

Thank you for your kind words, William. My upcoming book deals with those issues in much more expanded form. The title is: “Losing Military Supremacy: The Myopia of American Strategic Planning.” It is not often in one’s life that one begins to realize in terror that present West’s in general and US in particular so called “elites” and policy makers are for the most part ignorant amateurs.

Are you sure about the “steroids”? It seems that’s just the air-launched Iskander. May be, Kinzhal is just Iskander with a bigger solid-fuel load. It seems strange that you can increase four-fold the range just launching it from a Mig-31, even if it helps a lot.

Do you have info about the Avangar glider? I would love to know more about this thing.

Are you sure about the “steroids”? It seems that’s just the air-launched Iskander. May be, Kinzhal is just Iskander with a bigger solid-fuel load. It seems strange that you can increase four-fold the range just launching it from a Mig-31, even if it helps a lot.

Isn’t it what you have just describes is a definition of being on steroids?

Do you have info about the Avangar glider? I would love to know more about this thing.

No, I don’t, and as strange as it sounds, it makes me quite happy. I am sure there are very many people today who would like to know more.

I don't think the engineering is that difficult; all that is needed is ceramic-composite vehicle perhaps gyro guided, because rockets wouldn't work in a plasma environment, I think, that can endure re-entry. The power is from falling down the gravity well. All that is needed is a guidance, that's why I thought of a gyroscopic analog, system.

It should be simple and efficient and not too costly. So I don't think it will take too long to implement.

If there any engineers whose field of expertise reading this, their thoughts would be appreciated.

You should leave humor to professionals, you are clearly not very good at it. But your sad, little effort at negating uncomfortable reality is appreciated, nevertheless. I’d do it too if I was spending $700B a year and had nothing to show for it, except for cartoons and Hollywood propaganda.

US has now a NORAD. Now the US will have to build not only SOUTHRAD. US will have to build WESTRAD, EASTRAD, UNDERSEERAD and TOPRAD. In my humble opinion US has now a handful job.

Panic stations! Nobody outside of Russia, and few enough inside it, I’d guess, have taken Puitn seriously. Putin can’t be so stupid as not to realize that, by making his announcement in the run-up to the election, it would be seen as electioneering. That’s just common sense. He also cannot be so stupid as not to realize that the US cannot just let another country announce that it has superior weapons to it. Putin has is already knocking holes in US credibility every day he is allowed to remain in Ukraine. The US reaction will almost certainly be an arms race, which Russia simply cannot afford and maybe even further and better arming of Ukraine. The author’s frantic attempts to plug the hole confirms my suspicion that Putin has lurched into yet another blunder, his seventh by my count.

You, sir, are a consummate idiot, and you are never chary in demonstrating this fact time and time again.

P.S.: If President Putin lurches into more "blunders" than ten, will you need to take off your shoes and socks to keep track of their number? That'll only work up to twenty of course. It it gets beyond twenty, perhaps Tiny Duck can help you out (although, come to think of it, I am not really sure how many appendages a duck has upon which he/she may count...).

Hmm and who told you you could count,up to seven you say can't prove it my me,now if that rascal would just get out of my beloved Ukraine and turn the gas back on why things would just come up peachy RIGHT.!!!

What I find both galling and frightening, which proves Andrei's point about America's power elites, "are simply not qualified to grasp the complexity, the nature and application of military force. They simply have no reference points," is proven by today's article, which infuriates me in its sophomoric arrogance, posted on The Hill by "Tom Nichols...a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and an adjunct professor at the Harvard Extension School."

"The only thing that could have made Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech about Russia’s nuclear arsenal better is if he had given it wearing a Mao jacket and stroking a white cat, like the evil character Blofeld from a James Bond movie.

"Putin’s theatrics represented a farrago of theater, fantasy and bluster. For some reason, Putin said he was unveiling a nuclear-powered cruise missile with virtually unlimited range. This is a strange thing to claim, for several reasons. It is technologically difficult to do (which is why the Americans never built one, even after considering it more than 50 years ago), but more to the point, it serves no purpose. Why build a cruise missile that takes hours to reach its target when intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) or submarine-launched ballistic missiles can reach the same targets in minutes?

"Putin presented animation of the new missile, mostly consisting of computer graphics that looked like it could have been a cheap 1980s game called “Microsoft Cruise Missile Simulator.” The video showed a cruise missile flying a long distance while following terrain and avoiding obstacles. In other words, it was doing what we’ve known cruise missiles can do for more than 40 years.

"Even if the Russians can build this nuclear white elephant, it’s not clear what it’s supposed to do. Like the “invincible” hypersonic missile that Putin claims can evade all defenses, it’s a solution searching for a problem: Russian ICBM warheads, like all ICBM warheads, already land at hypersonic speed, and there are no functioning missile defenses in the United States that have any real chance of stopping them.

"Putin is unveiling this next generation of weapons from Drax Industries for two reasons. Most important, Putin is running for reelection, and while he has no chance of losing, he needs to gloss over his regime’s economic failures by legitimizing his rule in the militaristic themes he knows best as a product of the Soviet system.

"Whatever hopes people might have had about Putin as a new kind of leader back in 1999, he has turned into a standard-issue Soviet kleptocrat leading a comical (but nonetheless lethal) cult of personality. The man who began his time in office with a candid assessment of Russia’s future challenges is now a whining autocrat who blames all of his country’s misfortunes on sinister forces in the “West” and particularly the United States and NATO.

"Second, Putin embodies a gnawing and well-deserved insecurity at the root of the Russian defense establishment. The Russian military still relies on conscription and is still a nightmare of poor training, hazing and dodgy equipment. It is improving quickly — which should actually reassure the West, since a military in free-fall is more dangerous than a professional and competent force — but it is so weak that Putin knows he must rely on nuclear threats to punch above its weight."

*** End Excerpt***

I think these excerpts prove the idiot has no idea that his much beloved carrier groups are now effectively rendered useless. Either he's in denial or he's that stupid or he's lying, preaching to the "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" choir.

I am appalled.

I am appalled.

Don’t be–this is the “level” of current American “national security expertdom” which is a mix of ignorance, arrogance and huge insecurity. There are, of course, many fluffy “credentials” but for the most part those people are nothing more than empty suites, such as this “professor” from Naval War College. Actually, the butt-hurt oozes from his filled with BS piece. I think they got the message.

I am pleased --thrilled--to hear from the author of this unemotional, rational, factual analysis.

"Butt-hurt" indeed or delusion.

The problem as the "Empire" doubles down as other comments and even your friend The Saker posted in:

http://thesaker.is/how-far-can-the-americans-be-pushed/

is that the hubris and stupidity may escalate into violence, i.e. direct conflict.

You're a better judge perhaps than I of American political and military stupidity. The C.I.A. controlled Hollywood keeps showing apocalyptic films so as to prepare the masses for mass death. In addition to making Russians bad guys.

Do Russians understand--its leadership--that the extermination of their peons, namely us, is not a "bug" but a feature to the so-called Western elites? That is, they hold us in contempt. Look at the recent mass censorship by YouTube of even Christians.

My concern is that a military conflict is unavoidable, except perhaps the Mad Dogs are such cowards and want to maintain invincibility maybe they'll just stick to proxies in Ukraine and Syria...for now.

I agree, they are very, very dumb, but not so dumb to neglect something that may end their miserable little lives. Therefore, the “professor’s” write up is a butt hurt soothing piece. Just note the amount of hate and frustration reserved for the messenger, because they cannot even kill the messenger.

The Triad appears to have become a duo. The boomers and the silos. As it appears that the latest generation of Russian airframes are very stealthy, so it would extrapolate that the lead in stealth has “vanished.” I wonder when the Russians will announce the breakthrough that makes the oceans transparent to their satellites. I read somewhere that the art of diplomacy was the ability to say ” Nice Doggie, Nice Doggie until one had obtained a rock” . I suspect that the Russians have found the working Reset button that Hillary and her associates couldn’t.

The American global track record of the last few decades does not require any special elaborations—it is a record of military and humanitarian disasters.

Yet, somehow, the Americans have always managed to benefit from those disasters. On the other hand, the very educated country full of graduates of very famous institutions, particularly the military academies, has disintegrated. In case you are wondering I am talking about USSR.

The Pre-Shoigu Russian Army, for all its real and perceived shortcomings, disposed of the US-trained and partially equipped Georgian force in a matter of five days—the Russian Army’s technology, personnel and operational art was simply better.

The mighty Russians defeated a tiny country. What an achievment! At least they had enough sense not to boast about it. At the beginning of the conflict the Russians were actually quite a bit disorganised, as is the habit of all Slavs. They were caught by surprise. That much for their better personnel and operational art.

American power elites, the majority of whom have never served a day in uniform nor ever attended serious military academic institutions and whose expertise on serious military-technological and geopolitical issues is limited to couple of seminars on nuclear weapons and, in the best case scenario, the efforts of the Congressional Research Service are simply not qualified to grasp the complexity, the nature and application of military force. They simply have no reference points.

You seem to know so much one is almost tempted to believe you rub shoulders with those elites on a daily basis. We all know by now that the only person in the world who can understand those issues is the greates general of all times, Andrei Martyanov, formerly known as Smoothie ( I wonder what happened ). The power elites do not have to understand those issues. That is not their job. Believe it or not they have plenty of experts, real experts, not bloggers who take care of those issues. Whose expert are better? You can measure that by the position of a country in the world. As far as the pathetic talk about USA collapsing every minute now I have been hearing that for 60 years. Here is a short list of the countries which really disintegrated. USSR, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria,Lybia,Ukraine,etc.

After that he proceeded with what can only be described as a military-technological Pearl-Harbor meets Stalingrad. The strategic ramifications of the latest weapon systems Putin presented are immense.

I am sure they are. After the slaughter of several hundred Russian mercenaries in Syria the mighty Russian stand off capabilities, to use your term, showed to the whole world that they can only stand down. The Russians did not do much in a way of response after the killing of their general, attack on their base, attack on their embassy, shooting down of their plane, etc. I know. Their technology is so good they do not have to. It is enough to talk about it.

In the end, to be attacked from the South Pole, through South America, is not a contingency the US military is capable of facing. Probably not for very many years.

They do not have to. It is an idiotic proposal. In any case if only half of your exagerated claims are true you should leave United States immediately unless of course you are suicidal.

Don't be--this is the "level" of current American "national security expertdom" which is a mix of ignorance, arrogance and huge insecurity. There are, of course, many fluffy "credentials" but for the most part those people are nothing more than empty suites, such as this "professor" from Naval War College. Actually, the butt-hurt oozes from his filled with BS piece. I think they got the message.

Dear Andrei,

I am pleased –thrilled–to hear from the author of this unemotional, rational, factual analysis.

“Butt-hurt” indeed or delusion.

The problem as the “Empire” doubles down as other comments and even your friend The Saker posted in:

is that the hubris and stupidity may escalate into violence, i.e. direct conflict.

You’re a better judge perhaps than I of American political and military stupidity. The C.I.A. controlled Hollywood keeps showing apocalyptic films so as to prepare the masses for mass death. In addition to making Russians bad guys.

Do Russians understand–its leadership–that the extermination of their peons, namely us, is not a “bug” but a feature to the so-called Western elites? That is, they hold us in contempt. Look at the recent mass censorship by YouTube of even Christians.

My concern is that a military conflict is unavoidable, except perhaps the Mad Dogs are such cowards and want to maintain invincibility maybe they’ll just stick to proxies in Ukraine and Syria…for now.

You can be absolutely 100% sure that huge amount of money will be thrown at Pentagon, but as some people here astutely observed, most of it will be wasted or stolen. US will continue to invest into totally bankrupt weapons systems since they are not designed to fight but to make money. The track record of military-technological whopping disasters of the last decade or so is simply stunning--from F-35, to LCS, to now emerging unproven and fantastically expensive technologies for Columbia-class sub, to, basically not working air-defense and anti-missile complexes. This is simply unprecedented in human history.

Are you sure about the “steroids”? It seems that’s just the air-launched Iskander. May be,
Kinzhal is just Iskander with a bigger solid-fuel load. It seems strange that you can increase four-fold the range just launching it from a Mig-31, even if it helps a lot.

Isn't it what you have just describes is a definition of being on steroids?

Do you have info about the Avangar glider? I would love to know more about this thing.

No, I don't, and as strange as it sounds, it makes me quite happy. I am sure there are very many people today who would like to know more.

RE: The Avangar glider.

I don’t think the engineering is that difficult; all that is needed is ceramic-composite vehicle perhaps gyro guided, because rockets wouldn’t work in a plasma environment, I think, that can endure re-entry. The power is from falling down the gravity well. All that is needed is a guidance, that’s why I thought of a gyroscopic analog, system.

It should be simple and efficient and not too costly. So I don’t think it will take too long to implement.

If there any engineers whose field of expertise reading this, their thoughts would be appreciated.

An ICBM warhead also inevitably slows down somewhat...but not because it is designed to...it is designed to plummet right in...but still retains a lot of speed as it approaches the ground [it is not designed to hit the ground but to air-burst...]

But it spends a lot
less time going that fast...giving the heat less time to transfer into its surface... and even then the heat load is a major challenge...

Now with a gliding warhead...you obviously do not want to slow it down like you would the space shuttle...which comes down to land at airplane like speeds...it would be easy to shoot down...

But the glider is also going to spend
a lot more time flying through the thick air down low...so the heat transfer will have more time to build up...

So here we bring in the other big part of the puzzle...which is the shockwave...in that illustration of the capsule above...the shock wave is seen just in front of the convex blunt curvature of the body...

Fortunately...that shock wave also shields the heat...the temps behind the shockwave are
much lower...a serendipitous fact of the physical world without which space travel...or at least the re-entry part...would be impossible...

Even so...those heat loads are truly huge...

Now the shockwave geometry clearly mimics the body shape...as seen in that capsule...with a glider you are still going to have a shockwave...but because it is designed to glide it must be more aerodynamic...ie its lift must be greater than its drag...

That means the shape of the shockwave...and its proximity to the body...which is very important...may not be so ideal...

This is a
very large challenge in terms of aerodynamics and thermodynamics...

Then you have other issues...how are you going to control the flight path...having a gyro is fine...but you need actual control surfaces on the craft...ie movable 'flippers' if you will...

Those will require some kind of mechanical or hydro-mechanical actuation...where does the power for that come from...?

Thank you for your kind words, William. My upcoming book deals with those issues in much more expanded form. The title is: "Losing Military Supremacy: The Myopia of American Strategic Planning." It is not often in one's life that one begins to realize in terror that present West's in general and US in particular so called "elites" and policy makers are for the most part ignorant amateurs.

I look forward to your book.

I have a question: you didn’t discuss the deployed laser weapons? Are this laser powered equivalents of S-500 anti-aircraft systems? Targeting ground troups and tanks doesn’t make sense to me.

The one salient fact that impresses me the most about these Russian weapons systems is how useful they are. They were designed solely for the purpose of winning a war, specifically against America’s force projection platforms. They are not chess pieces in a global game of outbidding, outmatching, and intimidation. They are meant to be used; they will be used.

The American elites seem to think that because their own procurement system is designed to do nothing except spread pork around by building splashy, non-functioning weapons systems that are good only for browbeating Third-World shitholes, that everybody else must think the same way. The only question on their minds is, “Whose palm does Putin think he’s greasing with these armaments?” And look at how cheap they are. Why, we could spend more than that in a month!”

This development has convinced me more than ever that America is in its last days of hegemony. Our rulers simply will not realize how feckless and outclassed they are, even when they are swinging from the gallows.

Don't be--this is the "level" of current American "national security expertdom" which is a mix of ignorance, arrogance and huge insecurity. There are, of course, many fluffy "credentials" but for the most part those people are nothing more than empty suites, such as this "professor" from Naval War College. Actually, the butt-hurt oozes from his filled with BS piece. I think they got the message.

I agree, they are very, very dumb, but not so dumb to neglect something that may end their miserable little lives. Therefore, the “professor’s” write up is a butt hurt soothing piece. Just note the amount of hate and frustration reserved for the messenger, because they cannot even kill the messenger.

What I find both galling and frightening, which proves Andrei's point about America's power elites, "are simply not qualified to grasp the complexity, the nature and application of military force. They simply have no reference points," is proven by today's article, which infuriates me in its sophomoric arrogance, posted on The Hill by "Tom Nichols...a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and an adjunct professor at the Harvard Extension School."

"The only thing that could have made Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech about Russia’s nuclear arsenal better is if he had given it wearing a Mao jacket and stroking a white cat, like the evil character Blofeld from a James Bond movie.

"Putin’s theatrics represented a farrago of theater, fantasy and bluster. For some reason, Putin said he was unveiling a nuclear-powered cruise missile with virtually unlimited range. This is a strange thing to claim, for several reasons. It is technologically difficult to do (which is why the Americans never built one, even after considering it more than 50 years ago), but more to the point, it serves no purpose. Why build a cruise missile that takes hours to reach its target when intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) or submarine-launched ballistic missiles can reach the same targets in minutes?

"Putin presented animation of the new missile, mostly consisting of computer graphics that looked like it could have been a cheap 1980s game called “Microsoft Cruise Missile Simulator.” The video showed a cruise missile flying a long distance while following terrain and avoiding obstacles. In other words, it was doing what we’ve known cruise missiles can do for more than 40 years.

"Even if the Russians can build this nuclear white elephant, it’s not clear what it’s supposed to do. Like the “invincible” hypersonic missile that Putin claims can evade all defenses, it’s a solution searching for a problem: Russian ICBM warheads, like all ICBM warheads, already land at hypersonic speed, and there are no functioning missile defenses in the United States that have any real chance of stopping them.

"Putin is unveiling this next generation of weapons from Drax Industries for two reasons. Most important, Putin is running for reelection, and while he has no chance of losing, he needs to gloss over his regime’s economic failures by legitimizing his rule in the militaristic themes he knows best as a product of the Soviet system.

"Whatever hopes people might have had about Putin as a new kind of leader back in 1999, he has turned into a standard-issue Soviet kleptocrat leading a comical (but nonetheless lethal) cult of personality. The man who began his time in office with a candid assessment of Russia’s future challenges is now a whining autocrat who blames all of his country’s misfortunes on sinister forces in the “West” and particularly the United States and NATO.

"Second, Putin embodies a gnawing and well-deserved insecurity at the root of the Russian defense establishment. The Russian military still relies on conscription and is still a nightmare of poor training, hazing and dodgy equipment. It is improving quickly — which should actually reassure the West, since a military in free-fall is more dangerous than a professional and competent force — but it is so weak that Putin knows he must rely on nuclear threats to punch above its weight."

*** End Excerpt***

I think these excerpts prove the idiot has no idea that his much beloved carrier groups are now effectively rendered useless. Either he's in denial or he's that stupid or he's lying, preaching to the "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" choir.

I am appalled.

The Academies have long been staffed by Cult. Marxist faculties. That is why you see so many military officers who seem to have astonishingly Liberal political and cultural views. The long march through the institutions has swept over all the major institutions in the West including the military. The military has been used as the perfect vehicle for instituting the changes the Left wants because it is based on strict obedience to orders from above. From racial integration in the forties to gay rights, tranny rights, combat roles for women, and racially equalized outcomes, the Left has used the military as the cutting edge. I remember an article in American Spectator on Clinton’s first inauguration. There was a flyover of military aircraft at the ceremony. The Spectator reporter saw a Clinton campaigner jeering at the planes, and one of his comrades interrupted him saying, “Hey, it’s cool, those are ours now”.

The Academies have long been staffed by Cult. Marxist faculties. That is why you see so many military officers who seem to have astonishingly Liberal political and cultural views. The long march through the institutions has swept over all the major institutions in the West including the military. The military has been used as the perfect vehicle for instituting the changes the Left wants because it is based on strict obedience to orders from above. From racial integration in the forties to gay rights, tranny rights, combat roles for women, and racially equalized outcomes, the Left has used the military as the cutting edge. I remember an article in American Spectator on Clinton’s first inauguration. There was a flyover of military aircraft at the ceremony. The Spectator reporter saw a Clinton campaigner jeering at the planes, and one of his comrades interrupted him saying, “Hey, it’s cool, those are ours now”.

Absolutely excellent point; they can’t win wars against real adversaries they can only murder and bully to spread an agenda.

And now their bluff has been called.

Ray McGovern’s essay on Consortium News is good but none of the State Department morons and Pentagon fools will understand.

Meh. Good for Russia, but let me ask you: how many NATO divisions did it take to conquer Ukraine? That’s right, zero. US did spend 5 billion dollars, organized QUANGOS, CIA was involved, no doubt. All the missiles in the world wouldn’t have helped Ukraine. Economic sanctions, propaganda and intelligence warfare are the biggest threats to Russia, as far as West is concerned, not open military confrontation.

Russian technology is not superior, but they are not burdened with as much "free market" corruption as the USA. Billions of American dollars are wasted on fraudulent programs like lasers:

http://www.g2mil.com/Laser_Scams.htm

and the SM-3 missile defense scam:

http://www.g2mil.com/NMD_Fraud.htm

The USA should return to the method used before the 1980s where government organizations developed weapons and then contracted production to the private sector. Most of these military/government organizations still exist, but have been sidelined, so crap is developed by a free market profit seeking monopoly, like the F-35.

In my book free on-line book:

http://www.g2mil.com/war.htm

I list the major areas that modern military forces choose to ignore:

1. The lethality of of precision guided munitions to easily destroy ultra-expensive ships, tanks, and aircraft has been dismissed.

2. The use of small lasers to blind combatants. The US Marine Corps recently added expensive "dazzlers" to its machine guns that will prove more effective than the gun itself. (pictured)

3. The inability to replace munitions stocks in a timely manner. Most nations have limited stockpiles and the complexity of some make rapid production impossible. If the USA becomes involved in a major war that lasts longer than a month, it will have to pause for several months until new munitions are produced and delivered.

4. The humanitarian disaster that would result by disrupting the fragile economy of megacities. This occurred during World War II, but today's big cities are ten times larger! Armies may face hoards of millions of starving people begging for help.

5. The millions of civilian vehicles on the world's roads. It is impossible to tell if they are friend or foe unless inspected up close. Soldiers can use this to their advantage, which makes urban operations very dangerous for both civilians and soldiers.

6. The problem of thousands of commercial aircraft roaming the globe. Agents aboard can collect intelligence and these present long-range targeting problems for precision guided munitions that may kill hundreds of innocents.

8. Modern anti-tank weapons are equally effective anti-aircraft weapons against slower targets like low flying helicopters and aircraft transports. A helicopter assault or airborne drop near a modern army will be disastrous as anti-tank missiles shoot upwards and knock down aircraft.

9. Modern body armor has made 5.56mm and even 7.62mm bullets less lethal.

10. Fleets of surface ships cannot hide for long in big oceans.

I’ve been reading your site for a long time. Some points on your response to Martyanov:

The USA should return to the method used before the 1980s where government organizations developed weapons and then contracted production to the private sector. Most of these military/government organizations still exist, but have been sidelined, so crap is developed by a free market profit seeking monopoly, like the F-35.

Is this really accurate? There was plenty of development by commercial organizations prior to the 1980s, and military arsenals have their own failure records. Examples of commercial successes in the past:

*Most aircraft produced until the F-111 (which ultimately matured into a fine aircraftt), and then afterwards the entire teen series of fighters as well as the A-10 *The original AR-15, which the army chose to screw up royally

Then we have examples of arsenal and lab failures such as:

*Refusing the .276 round for the M1 Garand and later insisting on the 7.62 NATO in contravention of the superior British alternative *The aforementioned M16 screwup *BuOrd’s disgraceful WW2 torpedo foulup

Now one thing that has changed substantially is that most ship classes used to be developed by the Navy itself and its government yards, but now they’re developed by contractors (badly, as shown by the Gerald Ford class, the Zumwalt class, and the LCS joke). But the old navy did solicit commercial designs as well.

Some more competition is needed. This can come from renewed development by arsenals, but also we need trust busting in the defense industry.

Program management is obviously a huge disaster, but who knows why? Cost-plus contracts? Officers and politicians effectively playing for the contractors rather than the country? Ignorance, as Martyanov suggested?

2. The use of small lasers to blind combatants. The US Marine Corps recently added expensive “dazzlers” to its machine guns that will prove more effective than the gun itself. (pictured)

Skeptical. Against trained infantry gunfire is largely suppressive. The enemy is destroyed by indirect fires and making use of microterrain to maneuver.

That said adds another useful weapon for relatively little weight, and depending on the power of the laser and the weather that day it could outperform gunfire at longer ranges.

3. The inability to replace munitions stocks in a timely manner. Most nations have limited stockpiles and the complexity of some make rapid production impossible. If the USA becomes involved in a major war that lasts longer than a month, it will have to pause for several months until new munitions are produced and delivered.

This was an issue even in the Cold War (NATO officially planned on 30 days warstocks, but based on the experience of the Yom Kippur war it probably had one-two weeks). It was also an issue for all combatants in the early stages of both world wars.

It seems difficult to plan for this, especially as politicians are likely to balk at huge warstocks which must be frequently replaced or refurbished.

More important may be simply maintaining a strong industrial base–woops.

5. The millions of civilian vehicles on the world’s roads. It is impossible to tell if they are friend or foe unless inspected up close. Soldiers can use this to their advantage, which makes urban operations very dangerous for both civilians and soldiers.

This, incidentally, also makes the interdiction mission for airpower that was so successful in the summer of 1944 effectively useless against any industrialized opponent.

In the summer of 1944 we had 11,000 fighters (as well as medium bombers, unsure how many) in Western Europe facing a few thousand German trucks and a small number of rail lines.

In a modern conflict we’d have a few hundred fighters and attack aircraft against millions of trucks. Modern aircraft can attack more targets successfully, but the disparity is too huge to overcome.

9. Modern body armor has made 5.56mm and even 7.62mm bullets less lethal.

This is solvable problem in my view. Increase the sectional density and length of the bullet, and increase muzzle velocity.

Explosive and raufoss rounds might work as well, though the small size of bullets makes me skeptical.

Precision-guided glide weapons of relatively small size (e.g. 40mm in diameter) are another option.

You also don’t need to kill an opponent to achieve mission kill, and even someone in hard-kill body armor will be suppressed by gunfire which then allows for attack by indirect fires.

10. Fleets of surface ships cannot hide for long in big oceans.

Embarrassingly the USN’s official response to the Chinese demonstration of an antiship ballistic missile was that battlegroups would be hard to find. Sure.

Even if that were true, to attack the enemy on land the battlegroups must get close to shore, where they are easily found and attacked.

The USN basically stopped even bothering to defend its surface fleet against serious opponents after the cancellation of the F-111B.

The F-111B was a logical response to the threat of Soviet naval aviation. With a combat range of over 2,000 nautical miles on internal fuel, it could credibly keep Soviet maritime patrol bombers out of launch range for their anti-ship missiles (which were to be armed with tactical nuclear warheads).

The replacement F-14 only had a range of about 500 nautical miles. While a fine aircraft in many respect, it was useless in its planned role of fleet defense.

Advanced long-range SAMs could do the job instead of long-range interceptors, but the US lags Russia badly here and has no long-range SAMs of any kind.

This leaves missile defense and CIWS (where the US also lags many foreign nations, even small European ones!) to protect the fleet.

Good luck with that.

Serious things that might defend the fleet:

*Long-range interceptors *Long-range SAMs (USN equivalent of S-300/400/500 family) *High energy microwaves (with enough energy a bubble field could destroy missile electronics) *Upgraded and more numerous CIWS, ideally with lasers and rail guns if they ever get those to work *Actually armoring ships

But even if all of these expensive technologies work as intended, they’ll still vulnerable to being overwhelmed by salvos as well as nuclear warheads.

Probably we should accept that Karl Doenitz was right about the future of naval warfare–nothing on the surface.

The navy should instead be made up mostly of submarines and long range aircraft. Surface forces would be limited to mine sweepers, ASW corvettes, and green/brown water small boats (like the LCS except not expensive and trash).

The entire amphibious assault concept is ridiculous as well. Amphibious assaults were hard enough to pull off in WW2 against inferior opponents hard pressed on other fronts.

Against a prepared opponent with modern technology they will fail spectacularly.

And against an UNPREPARED opponent no specialized and expensive amphibious forces are not needed. They can be quickly conducted using improvised equipment as the Germans did in 1917 and again in 1940.

Of course government arsenals/depots/yards had losers, but they were an honest try. There is something wrong when a profit-seeking organization earns more when their products are flawed and must be fixed, and earns more profits when products are costly to maintain, all the while legally bribing congressmen with "contributions" and Generals and Admirals with obvious kickbacks the same month they "retire".

The new $14 billion USS Ford aircraft carrier has a launch system that cannot be fixed because it never worked. It remains an experimental system that after 20 years of development is not ready for use, and may never be. Replacing it with a proven steam system will cost over $5 billion.

The idea that items like aircraft carriers are somehow cheaper and better when produced by a monopoly is insane. Our Pentagon gets ten times more to spend than Russia each year. The fact that Russia can produce anything equal to the USA shows there are major problems.

As I write in my book, aircraft carriers and amphibious ships have a key role in power projection. However, if a major war occurs they must hide far away until enemy subs, missile bases, and bombers are destroyed, which may take months if not years. Then they can come out of hiding to conquer.

Technology is not the factor that makes this leapfrog so hopeless for the US MIC. The structure of Russia’s defense industrial base is inherently more agile and efficient because it’s a resource of the state and not exclusively a private profit center.

Back when the USSR had just collapsed in the expectation of peace and disarmament, Russian defense industries lost interest in weapons and looked to commercial markets. They pitched projects like satellite systems they could field at one percent of the cost of existing systems. You read that right. Comparable US systems were two orders of magnitude more expensive. Russia’s defense industrial base continued to out-innovate the Pentagon.

The US counter is to spend ten times more and piss away 95% of it. The inherent drain on procurement includes loading, such as marketing for more and more programs, and McMansions for the C-Suite parasites, from performance bonuses whose intended incentives can always be negated with revenue growth. It’s as if you decided to bulk up, but instead of lifting weights you injected yourself with CIA’s metastasizing-cancer toxin. The beltway cannot possibly keep up.

Technology is not the factor that makes this leapfrog so hopeless for the US MIC. The structure of Russia’s defense industrial base is inherently more agile and efficient because it’s a resource of the state and not exclusively a private profit center.

I agree with your thesis but the major factor here is a cultural one--a dramatically different attitude to war between Russia and US. I wrote about this here:

http://www.unz.com/article/assessing-russias-military-strength/

and I quote:

In layman’s lingo, the United States lacks geographic, historic, cultural, economic and technological pressures to develop and have a coherent defensive military doctrine and weapons which would help to implement it.

One cannot buy a history (albeit many in Washington think that it is possible) one has to experience it and built national institutions accordingly. US "elites" simply have no grasp what real war is.

"9. Modern body armor has made 5.56mm and even 7.62mm bullets less lethal."

I cannot speak to any of the 7.62 rounds available. However, the 55 grain 5.56 round is intended to shatter as it enters a target, and armor will most likely stop it even at close range. The 62 gr bullet, however, has a steel rod in the center, and was designed to Pierce armor.

Since the whole purpose of America’s military is to force the host, the United States and its population, to fork over wealth to the parasite, the military industrial complex, the news that all the technology is junk could not be better for them. Now they can throw that all away and make us pay for new useless junk.

The US exports War and Terrorism as its number one export, all for the profit of the rich. The taxpayers pay for all sorts of military equipment that gets paid for but most of it is never really delivered. How many ICBM missiles do you think the thieving rich have in those silos in North Dakota? I would bet zero. Much more profit in pocketing the money and telling the suckers you buried their missiles in the ground where the Russkies, and the taxpayers, never can see them. Why would any of the super wonderful people who rule us lie about anything? Why would super wonderful Putin lie about anything? Only commie pinkos don’t trust their Government or the stuff they read on the internet.

The American global track record of the last few decades does not require any special elaborations—it is a record of military and humanitarian disasters.

Yet, somehow, the Americans have always managed to benefit from those disasters. On the other hand, the very educated country full of graduates of very famous institutions, particularly the military academies, has disintegrated. In case you are wondering I am talking about USSR.

The Pre-Shoigu Russian Army, for all its real and perceived shortcomings, disposed of the US-trained and partially equipped Georgian force in a matter of five days—the Russian Army’s technology, personnel and operational art was simply better.

The mighty Russians defeated a tiny country. What an achievment! At least they had enough sense not to boast about it. At the beginning of the conflict the Russians were actually quite a bit disorganised, as is the habit of all Slavs. They were caught by surprise. That much for their better personnel and operational art.

American power elites, the majority of whom have never served a day in uniform nor ever attended serious military academic institutions and whose expertise on serious military-technological and geopolitical issues is limited to couple of seminars on nuclear weapons and, in the best case scenario, the efforts of the Congressional Research Service are simply not qualified to grasp the complexity, the nature and application of military force. They simply have no reference points.

You seem to know so much one is almost tempted to believe you rub shoulders with those elites on a daily basis. We all know by now that the only person in the world who can understand those issues is the greates general of all times, Andrei Martyanov, formerly known as Smoothie ( I wonder what happened ). The power elites do not have to understand those issues. That is not their job. Believe it or not they have plenty of experts, real experts, not bloggers who take care of those issues. Whose expert are better? You can measure that by the position of a country in the world. As far as the pathetic talk about USA collapsing every minute now I have been hearing that for 60 years. Here is a short list of the countries which really disintegrated. USSR, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria,Lybia,Ukraine,etc.

After that he proceeded with what can only be described as a military-technological Pearl-Harbor meets Stalingrad. The strategic ramifications of the latest weapon systems Putin presented are immense.

I am sure they are. After the slaughter of several hundred Russian mercenaries in Syria the mighty Russian stand off capabilities, to use your term, showed to the whole world that they can only stand down. The Russians did not do much in a way of response after the killing of their general, attack on their base, attack on their embassy, shooting down of their plane, etc. I know. Their technology is so good they do not have to. It is enough to talk about it.

In the end, to be attacked from the South Pole, through South America, is not a contingency the US military is capable of facing. Probably not for very many years.

They do not have to. It is an idiotic proposal.
In any case if only half of your exagerated claims are true you should leave United States immediately unless of course you are suicidal.

Agree.

To nitpick a bit

After the slaughter of several hundred Russian mercenaries in Syria

most likely less than 20, but, doesn’t affect your point.

All this “online therapy” about all powerful Russia is just that. Good for them. Beats pills and alcohol.

The war between The Empire and Russia won’t be with high tech weaponry. It will be by dissent, insurrections and ethic warfare, as in Ukraine.

Actually I don’t like Russia’s chances against US anymore. Not since Croatia became member of NATO. Their bravery is legendary. They almost helped the Germans at Stalingrad, but they were slaughtered like pigs and none of them made it back home alive. This time again, with the help of the Croats, the US is practically invincible – if the Russians dare to go against the formidable alliance of Croatia and US – they can expect similar results like at Stalingrad.

The Soviet Union spent 00 years trying to export socialist revolution. Excluding 1947, under the cover of Russian armies in Eastern Europe and China (more or less) it didn't work. US attempts don't seem to be making superior progress in comparison. On the other hand, there is a queue for membership of the EU.

I would note that there is a lot of shock and anger in the US media…not only the aspect of ‘Russian Aggression’…but also the idea that the Russians have made a major technology leapfrog over the US…

This is because for decades the US media and govt have loudly touted US and Western technology as far superior to that of the Soviet Union and Russia…

As with any propaganda theme of the West…this canard was eagerly accepted by all…the media…the public…the so-called ‘experts’ etc…

In a culture and at a historical time where ‘technology’ is fascinating to people…[despite the fact that they do not understand even the basic physical and technical side of it]… it is seen as a source of national power…

We have arrived at this point in time where it’s all about the technology…and the corollary…

‘…Our technology is the best in the world…especially our military technology…’

Of course…those who are technically literate and do in fact understand from a professional perspective the aerospace technology in particular…and will have likely been exposed to Russian and Soviet technical circles [such is the nature of science...it is and has always been an interactive, multinational field...]

…So for those people the Putin announcement of March 1, really does not come as a big surprise at all…many would who are familiar with the vast scientific and technical potential of this nation…are not shocked to see some very significant technical breakthroughs…

Still, speaking as one such individual, who has long taken the view that the Russians have the people and institutional tradition to pull of some amazing technological advances in aerospace, in particular…the magnitude of the leap described in the Putin address is still difficult to process…

If these technologies are as mature as Putin has implied…then this is massive news in the aerospace domain…

I will only highlight one of the new weapons systems here…the Kinzhal air-launched, hypersonic anti-ship missile…

What we know so far…it is an air-launched, maneuvering missile with an unprecedented range of 2,000 km [1,080 nautical miles]…and an unprecedented speed of Mach 10…[7,600 mph at sea level]…

If true…this is an astounding leap in cruise missile technology…ie if we consider here that ‘cruise’ means a maneuverable missile as opposed to one that flies on a simple ballistic trajectory like any piece of artillery…

The missile weighs 5,800 kg and has a range of 600 km [324 nm]…with a maximum speed of M4.6 [3,500 mph]…

This was the original Soviet carrier-killer…there is nothing remotely similar in the West…the updated version that entered service in 2016… the Kh32 boasts an increased range of 1,000 km [540 nm]…and a slight increase in speed to M5…

So clearly the groundwork for a ‘super-sized’ version of this kind of anti-ship missile has been in place for a long time…

Both the Kh models are powered by liquid fuel rocket engines and employ a flight trajectory where the missile first climbs to a high altitude…27 km [90,000 ft] for the KH22…and 40 km [130,000 ft] for the Kh32…

…then either dives at the target to achieve its maximum M4.6 speed [M5 for Kh32]…maneuvering all the way to the target to make it harder to knock out with air defenses…

…or, alternately, making a shallow dive at M3.5 and then approaches the target flying close to the water surface at a height of 500 ft…

Below is a picture of the KH22 carried by a Tu22M3

We see one Kh under the starboard wing and another in a conformal [ie half-buried] position under the fuselage…the port wing would carry a third Kh…

The below graphic shows the two flight profiles of the Kh…

And here we see a ‘friendly’ cockpit tour of the Tu22M by USN Admiral Charles R. Larson…Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet…during the Cold War…

So we see that the new Kinzhal missile claims twice the range and twice the speed of the existing Kh32…

We know nothing about the propulsion system of this missile nor its flight characteristics…ie how high does it go…and how does it make its final approach to the target…?

More on that in a bit…but first let’s look at the overall picture…

The primary target for this missile would not be USN aircraft carriers but Aegis missile cruisers and destroyers carrying the SM3 ballistic missile defense interceptors [BMD]…as Andrei has pointed out…

The retaliatory strike by Russia would be neutralized by the US missile defense…relying largely on the Aegis SM3 interceptor…which can be located on ships close to Russia’s coast…[as well as the Aegis Ashore installations in Eastern Europe]…

This kind of first-strike has been openly discussed in US policy circles for more than a decade…

‘…According to our model, such a simplified surprise attack would have a good chance of destroying every Russian bomber base, submarine, and ICBM…’

‘…On March 1, the Strategic Studies Quarterly, a journal published by the U.S. Air Force’s Air University, published an article admitting what…the Russians, have long been warning against: that U.S. strategic policy under the Obama Administration is seeking to create the capability to launch a first strike against Russia and/or China, without fear of nuclear retaliation..’

Clearly Putin’s announcement of these new weapons is to bring a reality check to such unhinged individuals…who may in fact represent the consensus in Washington to this day…

The threat as outlined in the above scenario is very real…the Trident 2 can cover 1,850 km [1,000 nm] in just 12.5 minutes…

That’s with what is called a minimum energy trajectory or MET…which is the trajectory angle for maximum range for a given amount of rocket energy…

The US has been exploring depressed trajectory [DT] ICBM flights which would reduce the 1,850 km flight time to just 7.2 minutes…

The Trident 2 ICBM has a much greater maximum range [up to 10,000 km] but the obvious advantage is to get as close as possible before launching…it is estimated that a US sub several hundred km offshore in international waters could hit the most inland Russian missile silos and bomber bases with a maximum range of about 3,000 km…

It is not clear whether the US has achieved the depressed trajectory capability, as this type of flight path results in increased heat loading [due to atmospheric friction]…and also reduced accuracy…due to unpredictable atmospheric effects like air density and winds aloft…

It is also unclear just how well the SM3 interceptor actually works…prominent critics like MIT’s Prof. Ted Postol, a weapons expert and former science adviser to the pentagon…have pointed out that the SM3 flight test ‘success’ has been overstated and doubts that the system is actually capable of bringing down an enemy missile in an actual combat scenario…

We also note that out of the 33 Aegis BMD equipped warships…17 are in the Pacific Fleet [plus five more such Japanese navy ships...yet the US has not attempted to shoot down a North Korean missile...many of which have overflown Japan...

However...whatever the failings of the current system may or may not be...the rational assumption is that sooner or later this capability will in fact be functional...the same assumption can be made for the depressed trajectory launch of Trident 2 submarine ICBMs...

‘…The missile is controlled during the whole flight with gas-dynamic and aerodynamic control surfaces. It uses small fins to reduce its radar signature…

…It is rumored that during flight it can maneuver at different altitudes and trajectories and can turn at up to 20 to 30 G to evade anti-ballistic missiles…’

The maximum speed is M6 to M7 and the missile does not leave the atmosphere…reaching a maximum height of 50 km [164,000 ft]…

The range is 500 km…although this limitation may be self-imposed due to the IMF treaty…the Iskander is said to be very accurate with a circular error probable of just 5 to 7 meters…and some sources in the West say as low as 2 meters…

The missile weight is 3,800 kg…which is two tons less than the Kh with a similar range…but ground-launched…an air launch at high speed and altitude would extend the same missile’s range considerably…

So we see that the basic pieces are indeed there to put together something like the Kinzhal…an Iskander derivative with a bigger, more powerful rocket motor [solid fuel] to reach a higher speed of M10…

Air launched form the unique MiG31 interceptor which is the only combat aircraft in existence designed to fly its entire mission at supersonic speeds…maximum speed is M2.8 and supersonic cruise is M2.4…

Its service ceiling is 20 km [66,000 ft] so an air-launch of an Iskander type missile will get the rocket to nearly half its altitude and one quarter its speed…the fuel energy saved by air launch means the rocket can fly longer and faster…

The big challenge is going to be aerodynamic skin heating due to the very high speeds coming down into the thick air at sea level…this is a materials science challenge that is similar to spacecraft atmospheric re-entry temperatures…on the order of possibly 2,000 C…

Putting the pieces together…the conclusion seems to point in the direction that Putin is not bluffing about the Kinzhal…this technology leap may in fact be very real…and going into service as we speak…

Also notable is the historical parallel…the Kh22 antiship missile and Tu22 aircraft were conceived in the 1950s as an asymmetrical response to USN aircraft carriers…and judging by the look on that admiral’s face while sitting in the Tu22 driver’s seat…there is much reason to believe that it would have worked as advertised…

The Kinzhal is now the asymmetrical and cost-effective response to an even bigger and more threatening challenge…the US long march to an effective ballistic missile defense encirclement of Russia that could someday make a US nuclear first strike possible and survivable…

This shows that the SM3 is designed to intercept a ballistic missile two distinct phases of flight...the
ascent portion of the target flight...starting right after rocket burnout and as the target is ascending in space on its ballistic trajectory...

And secondly...the
descent portion of the flight...where the target missile has passed its midpoint apogee and is descending toward the target...

Now here is the important part that somehow got lost in the original post...

We see here that intercepting the target ballistic missile in the
ascent phase requires the placement of the Aegis SM3 interceptors close to where the target missile is launched...

In the case of Russia...that would mean getting those Aegis ships near to Russia's coast or the Aegis Ashore installations in Eastern Europe...

If the
intent was to intercept those target missiles on the
descent part of the flight...the Aegis ships would be placed near the US...and Aegis Ashore would be placed right in the US...not Eastern Europe...

So by understanding how
midcourse missile defense works we see also the intent of those ballistic missile interceptors...
they are aimed squarely at Russia...

The other part that got lost in my original post was my introductory remarks about the
Iskander ground-launched missile...which is suggested by Andrei as the possible building block for the Kinzhal...

To briefly recap about what is known about the Iskander...it weighs 3,800 kg...two tons less than the Kh22 and has about the same range...500 km...

This range limitation as noted already is likely artificial in order to meet the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty [INF] which limits intermediate range missiles to 500 km maximum range...

Which means adding a longer fuel section...it is a solid-fuel rocket so can be modular...can increase the range...

The missile carries a warhead of up to 800 kg...so it is definitely able to sink a large warship with a direct hit...the Kh22 used a 1,000 kg warhead...which is said to have made a quite massive hole...

'...Soviet Tests showed that a Kh-22MA equipped with 1,000 kg (2,205 lb) RDX warhead and with an approach speed of 800 m/s (Mach 2.4), used against an aircraft carrier, will make a 22 m2 (240 sq ft) hole, and the warhead's cumulative jet will burn through internal ship compartments up to a depth of 12 m...'

That's with an approach speed of just M2.4...with a higher approach speed the kinetic energy itself would be greater...kinetic energy increases by the square of speed...so just doubling impact speed to ~M5 would quadruple the kinetic energy...
M10 would mean 16 times the kinetic energy on impact...[in comparison to the Kh22 impacting at M2.4...

Although it should be noted here that the likely impact speed would certainly be less than M10...perhaps half that I would estimate...due to drag in the thick air down low...we see the same with the Kh22...[the M5 is a top speed...not impact speed...which is not actually given]...

In any case...it means a smaller warhead than that used on the Kh22 would actually be adequate...freeing up more fuel payload...

As I noted already...the Iskander is fully maneuverable throughout its flight...suing both gas dynamic [ie thrust vector by means of paddles in the exhaust gas stream]...and aerodynamic control...ie by means of control surfaces like movable fins...

Also as noted the MiG31 is the ideal platform for this missile...the Tu22 is bigger and can carry three Kh22/32...which is 18 tons...but it does not have the speed or altitude capability of the MiG31...

Also important is that the MiG31 is designed to cruise at M2.4...it is the only aircraft in existence...since demise of the Concorde to cruise supersonically at high Mach number...neither the Tu22 nor the bigger Tu160 heavy bomber is designed for sustained supersonic...only dashes...

This is true of all combat aircraft...

For instance the F22 is designed for only a 100 nm sprint in its supercruise at M1.8...

So the bottom line as far as the Kinzhal is concerned is that this is probably the most likely of the weapons mentioned by Putin that is closest to actual use...all the pieces are definitely there...the Iskander technology is well proven and has seen combat...2008 Georgia war...

The MiG31 has been a uniquely powerful aircraft for three decades now and is a perfect match for this type of missile...

As for the other weapons...certainly the nuclear powered cruise missile is intriguing...but we will leave that for another day...lots to unpack there...

“The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is on the run around the globe” said chief Pentagon spokesman Dana W. White last year.

“We’re not surprised by the statements and the American people should rest assured that we are fully prepared,” said Pentagon tranny Dana White a week ago.

The US military exists to enslave the majority and to force them to pay the majority of their incomes in taxes. What do Americans get in exchange for their taxes? Do they get health insurance? No. Do they get retirement benefits? No, unless you consider $1000 or less a month in social security a “retirement.” Maybe if you live in your car. Do they get decent roads? No. Do they get decent public transportation? No. Do they get anything positive of any sort? No, except their “Freedoms” and their “Specialness” and “Preparation” by the world’s greatest Ponzi scheme. Nothing drains a country’s resources more than wasting them on war and soldiers, rather than on its own people.

The US military exists to enslave the majority and to force them to pay the majority of their incomes in taxes.

This is a silly comment. All taxing authority (which in turn also implies monetary authority) is dependent on state power. Military power is but one aspect of state power. To that we can add police forces, courts, and of course the the tax authorities themselves. There are also the non-coercive aspects of state power such as propaganda, legitimacy, social services, public employees, etc.

If the primary purpose of the US military were to enslave the domestic population, both its deployment and its weapons would be completely different. Instead of a global empire of bases which won't even protect the Southern border, armed forces would be arrayed in bases located outside of major metropolitan areas.

The army would have a lot more armor, artillery, infantry, and airpower. The air force would have low performance aircraft with large payloads. The navy would be more of a gendarmerie.

And almost no one in America pays the majority of his income in taxes. Some people far into the top bracket in California who are very bad at tax planning and hate capital gains and qualified dividends perhaps.

What do Americans get in exchange for their taxes? Do they get health insurance? No. Do they get retirement benefits? No, unless you consider $1000 or less a month in social security a “retirement.” Maybe if you live in your car. Do they get decent roads? No. Do they get decent public transportation?

In other words you're a social democrat, and for that matter your statements aren't correct.

Poor Americans and elderly Americans get health insurance from the government.

The maximum monthly social security benefit is $3,538.

The roads are not bad at all in most of the country.

Can't argue with you on mass transit of course.

I'd rather have minimal safety nets and an expansive private sector (stripped of rent-seeking, monopolistic, and parasitic elements to be sure). This is a class and ideological issue with trade-offs.

What is damning is the relative inefficiency of public spending in America relative to many other industrial countries, and this isn't all owing to the bloated military-industrial complex (which is also inefficient). The country spends as much tax money on health insurance as many other countries but fails to cover the entire population. The pay-as-you pension system has an abysmal rate of return. Infrastructure projects are cartoonishly expensive compared to other rich countries.

I am pleased --thrilled--to hear from the author of this unemotional, rational, factual analysis.

"Butt-hurt" indeed or delusion.

The problem as the "Empire" doubles down as other comments and even your friend The Saker posted in:

http://thesaker.is/how-far-can-the-americans-be-pushed/

is that the hubris and stupidity may escalate into violence, i.e. direct conflict.

You're a better judge perhaps than I of American political and military stupidity. The C.I.A. controlled Hollywood keeps showing apocalyptic films so as to prepare the masses for mass death. In addition to making Russians bad guys.

Do Russians understand--its leadership--that the extermination of their peons, namely us, is not a "bug" but a feature to the so-called Western elites? That is, they hold us in contempt. Look at the recent mass censorship by YouTube of even Christians.

My concern is that a military conflict is unavoidable, except perhaps the Mad Dogs are such cowards and want to maintain invincibility maybe they'll just stick to proxies in Ukraine and Syria...for now.

Thanks for the concise and wise reply.

he problem as the “Empire” doubles down

You can be absolutely 100% sure that huge amount of money will be thrown at Pentagon, but as some people here astutely observed, most of it will be wasted or stolen. US will continue to invest into totally bankrupt weapons systems since they are not designed to fight but to make money. The track record of military-technological whopping disasters of the last decade or so is simply stunning–from F-35, to LCS, to now emerging unproven and fantastically expensive technologies for Columbia-class sub, to, basically not working air-defense and anti-missile complexes. This is simply unprecedented in human history.

Thanks for the reply but my point primarily is that the A.Z. (to quote The Saker) Empire is doubling down. Its attitude is still "what're you gonna do about it" and the recent news indicates they're pushing in Syria.

A nuclear strike from Russia that kills 99% of the population doesn't bother them in the slightest. Or they think Putin is bluffing.

My concern is about the plane crash in Syria: why were so many pilots (allegedly) on board and thus so vulnerable. Not that it's necessarily true that the "Deep State" caused this.

The self-confessed military analysts "Q" with millions of followers states, incidentally, that CIA caused the recent jetliner crash to kill Rosatom executives and scientists. I don't trust him. He says Snowden now is in China; was CIA all along and was deliberately sent to Russia for mischief making.

https://qanonposts.com/

Finally, if you have any idea about my hypothesis discussed with F.B. above whether the glider manipulates plasma using electric fields and a small on-board nuclear reactor or just uses an undiscovered and unknown to America composite. But from what F.B. wrote we have no how idea how it would work, hence the skepticism by the fake experts.

I hope you can comment since you're the expert and can separate truth from the bullshit.

Putin's character makes me think he doesn't bluff. Western politicians are such liars they don't believe Putin tells the truth.

Technology is not the factor that makes this leapfrog so hopeless for the US MIC. The structure of Russia's defense industrial base is inherently more agile and efficient because it's a resource of the state and not exclusively a private profit center.

Back when the USSR had just collapsed in the expectation of peace and disarmament, Russian defense industries lost interest in weapons and looked to commercial markets. They pitched projects like satellite systems they could field at one percent of the cost of existing systems. You read that right. Comparable US systems were two orders of magnitude more expensive. Russia's defense industrial base continued to out-innovate the Pentagon.

The US counter is to spend ten times more and piss away 95% of it. The inherent drain on procurement includes loading, such as marketing for more and more programs, and McMansions for the C-Suite parasites, from performance bonuses whose intended incentives can always be negated with revenue growth. It's as if you decided to bulk up, but instead of lifting weights you injected yourself with CIA's metastasizing-cancer toxin. The beltway cannot possibly keep up.

Technology is not the factor that makes this leapfrog so hopeless for the US MIC. The structure of Russia’s defense industrial base is inherently more agile and efficient because it’s a resource of the state and not exclusively a private profit center.

I agree with your thesis but the major factor here is a cultural one–a dramatically different attitude to war between Russia and US. I wrote about this here:

In layman’s lingo, the United States lacks geographic, historic, cultural, economic and technological pressures to develop and have a coherent defensive military doctrine and weapons which would help to implement it.

One cannot buy a history (albeit many in Washington think that it is possible) one has to experience it and built national institutions accordingly. US “elites” simply have no grasp what real war is.

Obviously, beyond the greed focused MIC there is a much more serious implication of US last experiencing, but only a medium intensity, war in its Civil War so long ago. The much more serious implication is that it is dishing out war mush more readily than any other nation on the planet. The reason that Ziocon parasites have found such a fertile ground in the US is almost like an isolated island, whose people consider war to be entertainment (shock & awe), have never had any serious family or home losses from it and are dumb and uneducated enough to be pulled by their noses through their MSM to any war that Ziocons fancy.

In short, smart parasites feeding on dumb f*cks.

Another point is that the parasites control and profit from the fully enclosed war cycle:
Media,
Weapon building industry,
Post-war reconstruction industry and
More stolen oil, water and land for Israel.

In such system, the efficiency is an absolutely last (unprofitable) consideration.

Therefore, US winning a war against Russia? Not in the next hundred years militarily but possibly through subterfuge: assasinations and regime change.

I am sorry Andrei, but I am not convinced of the Russian technological superiority. I believe that the Americans will produce even scarier videos of attacks on Russia, than those used by Putin in his presentation – showing attacks on US.

In order to ensure complete fairness, I propose that the winner of this technological war be decided by the Academy of motion pictures and should be awarded at the next year’s Oscars with a statue for best special effects.

History – as recorded by that biggest arbiter of truth - the Hollywood movies – clearly shows that more Germans died in the American made movies than in the Russian ones – thus it’s obvious that US won that war pretty much single-handedly.

Similarly – if Hollywood produces better videos this time around too – the winning decision should go to US and Russia has no business messing with them.

Of course, there will be skeptics that will say that US is flirting with disaster by trying to bully Russia – based on some historical precedence. I don’t really think that US are flirting with disaster, I think that they are having a full blown affair.

In the 1970s, NATO sponsored seminars on the Soviet Union’s military weaponry. I attended the seminars. We had “hands-on” access to Soviet tanks and other equipment. I was impressed. It was the biggest “bang for the buck” as opposed to the US model of letting private, for-profit contractors design and cost weapons for you. We left the seminars with a heartfelt fear of the Soviet Union’s military capability. BTW: Due to a few soldiers going “postal”, we were not allowed access to our unit weapons except in the case of an emergency … or, maybe a war.

After 20 years in the Air Force in air operations and 26 years as a government contractor in finance and procurement, I offer the F-35 as the paradigm of the “death of the US military”. Bad design compounded by troubled procurement compounded by non-stop lobbying by politicians and contracts to ignore the obvious = a procurement disaster.

The F-111 program proved that it was not possible to develop a common design that could meet the requirements of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. Carriers vs. land-based airfields. It cannot be done. The contracts and politicians made the case that it could be done. The F-35 is the dismal result.

Russian weapons are designed by the military and then outsourced to government-industries or private contractors for production. US weapons are designed by contractors to maximize profits and then forced on the military services by politicians. Go figure the outcomes.

The F-111 program proved that it was not possible to develop a common design that could meet the requirements of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. Carriers vs. land-based airfields.

The F-111 didn't prove this at all. An aircraft carrier is just a short airfield, and one with launch catapults and landing restraining wires.

The only fundamental design change requirement is a sturdier landing gear (and no doubt greater corrosion resistance) and arresting hook. It's also beneficial to decrease the aircraft's wing-loading, which is not necessarily undesirable in a land-based aircraft though comes with some trade offs (increased drag, reduced top speed, more turbulence in on the deck missions and thus a higher minimum altitude).

Both the F-111 and F-35 for that matter address the wing-loading issue with different wings in air force and naval versions.

Note that prior to the F-111 the F-4 did serve in all three services (and was successfully exported), and the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm successfully employed it on carriers smaller than ours (though WW2-era Midway-class carriers were still in service).

WW2-era USAAF aircraft would've worked just fine on carriers if the Navy had wanted them--note that the Spitfire and Fury were both successfully navalized. They even managed to take off from tiny (by today's standards) carriers with B-25 Mitchells.

The F-14 would've worked just fine in the Air Force, and not only was it pitched to the Air Force (as an interceptor, declined) but Iran uses it in its air force.

The main problem with the F-111B is that it was under-powered for its mass to serve in a carrier role as a result of optimistic design targets. The Pratt & Whitney F100 would've solved that problem, and it had a first run just three years after the F-111B was cancelled.

And even the F-111B as is would've worked just fine on the navy's supercarriers. Trouble was it didn't have enough thrust for the old Midway-class carriers.

As for the F-35, here there is a fundamental aerodynamic problem caused by the tri-service requirement. In particular, the Marine Corp's insistence on a VTOL design (which the Marine Corps never needed before the Harrier for some reason). This effectively ruined the airframe for all three services by adding space for the lift fan.

But many problems with the F-35 have nothing to do with this at all and are simply the result of bad program management. The only other issue I've heard stemming from the airframe is some kind of problem with the F-35C's tail hook, perhaps a consequence of the "stealth" requirement.

"The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is on the run around the globe" said chief Pentagon spokesman Dana W. White last year.

"We're not surprised by the statements and the American people should rest assured that we are fully prepared," said Pentagon tranny Dana White a week ago.

The US military exists to enslave the majority and to force them to pay the majority of their incomes in taxes. What do Americans get in exchange for their taxes? Do they get health insurance? No. Do they get retirement benefits? No, unless you consider $1000 or less a month in social security a "retirement." Maybe if you live in your car. Do they get decent roads? No. Do they get decent public transportation? No. Do they get anything positive of any sort? No, except their "Freedoms" and their "Specialness" and "Preparation" by the world's greatest Ponzi scheme. Nothing drains a country's resources more than wasting them on war and soldiers, rather than on its own people.

The US military exists to enslave the majority and to force them to pay the majority of their incomes in taxes.

This is a silly comment. All taxing authority (which in turn also implies monetary authority) is dependent on state power. Military power is but one aspect of state power. To that we can add police forces, courts, and of course the the tax authorities themselves. There are also the non-coercive aspects of state power such as propaganda, legitimacy, social services, public employees, etc.

If the primary purpose of the US military were to enslave the domestic population, both its deployment and its weapons would be completely different. Instead of a global empire of bases which won’t even protect the Southern border, armed forces would be arrayed in bases located outside of major metropolitan areas.

The army would have a lot more armor, artillery, infantry, and airpower. The air force would have low performance aircraft with large payloads. The navy would be more of a gendarmerie.

And almost no one in America pays the majority of his income in taxes. Some people far into the top bracket in California who are very bad at tax planning and hate capital gains and qualified dividends perhaps.

What do Americans get in exchange for their taxes? Do they get health insurance? No. Do they get retirement benefits? No, unless you consider $1000 or less a month in social security a “retirement.” Maybe if you live in your car. Do they get decent roads? No. Do they get decent public transportation?

In other words you're a social democrat, and for that matter your statements aren't correct.

Poor Americans and elderly Americans get health insurance from the government.

The maximum monthly social security benefit is $3,538.

The roads are not bad at all in most of the country.

Can't argue with you on mass transit of course.

I'd rather have minimal safety nets and an expansive private sector (stripped of rent-seeking, monopolistic, and parasitic elements to be sure). This is a class and ideological issue with trade-offs.

What is damning is the relative inefficiency of public spending in America relative to many other industrial countries, and this isn't all owing to the bloated military-industrial complex (which is also inefficient). The country spends as much tax money on health insurance as many other countries but fails to cover the entire population. The pay-as-you pension system has an abysmal rate of return. Infrastructure projects are cartoonishly expensive compared to other rich countries.

I don't have a personal experience but some contacts and plenty of "Internet info" (which can be deceiving on this issue).
It's "known" that the US "social safety net" is the worst in West.
That number, though, if correct, is a good one.

I mean, with that amount of available money provided by the State , how do we see all that visible homelessness and poverty in US?
I know that drugs and alcohol, with general stupidity, can do that.

I guess my question is:
A family of four, breadwinner losing his/her job (offshoring, outsourcing, downsizing) getting on that "net", renting......would they lose their accommodation and effectively have problem with food, shelter and medical help, while on that net while finding another job?
And, how long can they be on that net?
I know I can read about that a lot, but condensed info from a person on the ground there would be much more helpful.

Many people have commented on these futuristic weapons and have given very logical and lucid reasons why these weapons cannot and will not function in the Earth’s dense atmosphere. I totally agree with them. Is Putin bluffing? Why is he claiming to be close to having these weapons? Are they possible? I’m no scientist and I think I could be totally wrong and what I’m suggesting could be laughable, but here goes, laugh away. The engine and driving force of these new missiles is a Nuclear Bomb/nuclear reaction/ chain reaction that has no cladding, covering to keep radiation within limits or safe for humans. All these protective claddings are left behind once the self powered N bomb is launched as a missile. There is a missile launched by a human piloted jet too; how is he protected if all are open, radiating and dangerous nuclear self powered bombs/ missiles, let me know how.

"...Many people have commented on these futuristic weapons and have given very logical and lucid reasons why these weapons cannot and will not function in the Earth’s dense atmosphere..."

I don't think this is true. I read, somewhere can't remember where, that by expelling hydrogen gas from the front of a hyper-sonic missile it would keep the nose cone cool. Think about air curtains in theme parks keeping people cool with raging fires right next to them. Another example is film cooling in jet engines.

You can be absolutely 100% sure that huge amount of money will be thrown at Pentagon, but as some people here astutely observed, most of it will be wasted or stolen. US will continue to invest into totally bankrupt weapons systems since they are not designed to fight but to make money. The track record of military-technological whopping disasters of the last decade or so is simply stunning--from F-35, to LCS, to now emerging unproven and fantastically expensive technologies for Columbia-class sub, to, basically not working air-defense and anti-missile complexes. This is simply unprecedented in human history.

You can be absolutely 100% sure that huge amount of money will be thrown at Pentagon, but as some people here astutely observed, most of it will be wasted or stolen.

May be that was Putin’s idea. Let them outspend and enlarge the astronomic budget US’s deficit. In the end with 2500 strategic nukes on each side, MAD will remain firmly in place with or whitout NMD.

May be that was Putin’s idea. Let them outspend and enlarge the astronomic budget US’s deficit. In the end with 2500 strategic nukes on each side, MAD will remain firmly in place with or whitout NMD.

The main idea was to show futility of most American strategies re: Russia, including useless and immensely expensive ABM program. This, by definition, should "coerce" American "elites" into more constructive mode. Again, the whole nature of the American military posture since 1970s is lack of any desire to play by the rules, including within the more-or-less stable framework of MAD. In fact, the US constantly tries to exit MAD framework. Now it is over for US, it may try to exit MAD whatever it wants--it doesn't matter: US is completely defenseless against both nuclear and conventional HPWs. Again, since 2010 Russia's Military Doctrine, reiterated in 2014 edition of same, the use of high precision conventional weapons IS stated as means of strategic power containment. Obviously, most of US "experts" seldom comprehend what they read from Russia, but it is their problem.

As per bankrupting itself--sorry, but the US is already bankrupt and the only exit from this situation for US is coercion of Europe and American re-industrialization. Is it possible at this stage? I doubt it but we still have to wait and see. A huge part of the US "dominance" was its claim to being capable to power wrestle anyone on the planet. This is absolutely NOT the case anymore. hasn't been for quite some time, without this military mythology the globalist economic "order" begins to crumble--a process we all observe today. So, in summary--it is not one or the other thing, it is many things together working both in concert and providing synergistic effect. On March 1st Putin declared Russia's absolute sovereignty--as I said, we are entering new post-Pax American world, and I mean right this very moment as I type this.

The American global track record of the last few decades does not require any special elaborations—it is a record of military and humanitarian disasters.

Yet, somehow, the Americans have always managed to benefit from those disasters. On the other hand, the very educated country full of graduates of very famous institutions, particularly the military academies, has disintegrated. In case you are wondering I am talking about USSR.

The Pre-Shoigu Russian Army, for all its real and perceived shortcomings, disposed of the US-trained and partially equipped Georgian force in a matter of five days—the Russian Army’s technology, personnel and operational art was simply better.

The mighty Russians defeated a tiny country. What an achievment! At least they had enough sense not to boast about it. At the beginning of the conflict the Russians were actually quite a bit disorganised, as is the habit of all Slavs. They were caught by surprise. That much for their better personnel and operational art.

American power elites, the majority of whom have never served a day in uniform nor ever attended serious military academic institutions and whose expertise on serious military-technological and geopolitical issues is limited to couple of seminars on nuclear weapons and, in the best case scenario, the efforts of the Congressional Research Service are simply not qualified to grasp the complexity, the nature and application of military force. They simply have no reference points.

You seem to know so much one is almost tempted to believe you rub shoulders with those elites on a daily basis. We all know by now that the only person in the world who can understand those issues is the greates general of all times, Andrei Martyanov, formerly known as Smoothie ( I wonder what happened ). The power elites do not have to understand those issues. That is not their job. Believe it or not they have plenty of experts, real experts, not bloggers who take care of those issues. Whose expert are better? You can measure that by the position of a country in the world. As far as the pathetic talk about USA collapsing every minute now I have been hearing that for 60 years. Here is a short list of the countries which really disintegrated. USSR, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria,Lybia,Ukraine,etc.

After that he proceeded with what can only be described as a military-technological Pearl-Harbor meets Stalingrad. The strategic ramifications of the latest weapon systems Putin presented are immense.

I am sure they are. After the slaughter of several hundred Russian mercenaries in Syria the mighty Russian stand off capabilities, to use your term, showed to the whole world that they can only stand down. The Russians did not do much in a way of response after the killing of their general, attack on their base, attack on their embassy, shooting down of their plane, etc. I know. Their technology is so good they do not have to. It is enough to talk about it.

In the end, to be attacked from the South Pole, through South America, is not a contingency the US military is capable of facing. Probably not for very many years.

They do not have to. It is an idiotic proposal.
In any case if only half of your exagerated claims are true you should leave United States immediately unless of course you are suicidal.

Your entire tedious post can be summed up in two words…

Butt-Hurt

Proof is here…

‘…At the beginning of the conflict the Russians were actually quite a bit disorganised, as is the habit of all Slavs…’

I have no idea what your ‘Regnum’ is about these days… but I suspect this is how your ‘kingdom’ looks in many neighborhoods…

The US military exists to enslave the majority and to force them to pay the majority of their incomes in taxes.

This is a silly comment. All taxing authority (which in turn also implies monetary authority) is dependent on state power. Military power is but one aspect of state power. To that we can add police forces, courts, and of course the the tax authorities themselves. There are also the non-coercive aspects of state power such as propaganda, legitimacy, social services, public employees, etc.

If the primary purpose of the US military were to enslave the domestic population, both its deployment and its weapons would be completely different. Instead of a global empire of bases which won't even protect the Southern border, armed forces would be arrayed in bases located outside of major metropolitan areas.

The army would have a lot more armor, artillery, infantry, and airpower. The air force would have low performance aircraft with large payloads. The navy would be more of a gendarmerie.

And almost no one in America pays the majority of his income in taxes. Some people far into the top bracket in California who are very bad at tax planning and hate capital gains and qualified dividends perhaps.

What do Americans get in exchange for their taxes? Do they get health insurance? No. Do they get retirement benefits? No, unless you consider $1000 or less a month in social security a “retirement.” Maybe if you live in your car. Do they get decent roads? No. Do they get decent public transportation?

In other words you're a social democrat, and for that matter your statements aren't correct.

Poor Americans and elderly Americans get health insurance from the government.

The maximum monthly social security benefit is $3,538.

The roads are not bad at all in most of the country.

Can't argue with you on mass transit of course.

I'd rather have minimal safety nets and an expansive private sector (stripped of rent-seeking, monopolistic, and parasitic elements to be sure). This is a class and ideological issue with trade-offs.

What is damning is the relative inefficiency of public spending in America relative to many other industrial countries, and this isn't all owing to the bloated military-industrial complex (which is also inefficient). The country spends as much tax money on health insurance as many other countries but fails to cover the entire population. The pay-as-you pension system has an abysmal rate of return. Infrastructure projects are cartoonishly expensive compared to other rich countries.

I don’t have a personal experience but some contacts and plenty of “Internet info” (which can be deceiving on this issue). It’s “known” that the US “social safety net” is the worst in West. That number, though, if correct, is a good one.

I mean, with that amount of available money provided by the State , how do we see all that visible homelessness and poverty in US? I know that drugs and alcohol, with general stupidity, can do that.

I guess my question is: A family of four, breadwinner losing his/her job (offshoring, outsourcing, downsizing) getting on that “net”, renting……would they lose their accommodation and effectively have problem with food, shelter and medical help, while on that net while finding another job? And, how long can they be on that net? I know I can read about that a lot, but condensed info from a person on the ground there would be much more helpful.

Social Security benefits are based on your lifetime contributions and what age you choose to begin taking them.

So a higher earner will get more benefits (up to the cap, around $106k if memory serves) than a modest earner--simply because he paid more into the system.

You can elect to take benefits as early as 62, or as later as 70.5.

The system was designed with psychological, political intent. The idea was that the program would be impossible for conservatives to eliminate because all wage earners would feel entitled to pensions that they themselves had paid for (though strictly speaking it is a pure tax and your taxes are paid to current retirees).

In act early economists recommend the system be funded out of general revenues and said there was no need for a payroll tax. FDR said he wanted people to take ownership in the system so no one could ever destroy the system.

It is remarkably effective. It's remarkable effective and neither Ronald Reagan nor George W Bush lasted more than a few weeks when they tried to roll back the system.

The only wins conservatives have scored against it are taxing some of the benefits (began in the 80s) and making some changes to cost-of-living inflation adjustments in the 90s.

It's called the third rail of politics here and every old person is outraged by any suggestion that benefits should be reduced.

There is however a lot of propaganda about the alleged future unaffordability of the system, and it now strikes me that there is an elite consensus in favor of modifying the system to reduce benefits.

It’s “known” that the US “social safety net” is the worst in West.

I mean, with that amount of available money provided by the State , how do we see all that visible homelessness and poverty in US?I know that drugs and alcohol, with general stupidity, can do that.

I guess my question is:A family of four, breadwinner losing his/her job (offshoring, outsourcing, downsizing) getting on that “net”, renting……would they lose their accommodation and effectively have problem with food, shelter and medical help, while on that net while finding another job?And, how long can they be on that net?I know I can read about that a lot, but condensed info from a person on the ground there would be much more helpful.

As a general rule of thumb the safety net is very weak for those in the middle class, whereas in many other Western countries there are universal social insurance systems intended to cover everyone regardless of income. Healthcare is an obvious one across the West, and much ink has been spilled about the outrageous cost of college in America. The government's safety net here is simply to allow young folks to go into unlimited state-guaranteed debt.

Something of a stealth middle class safety net is provided by the corporate sector in the form of health insurance, pensions, maternity leave, etc. This has been reduced since the 80s but still exist, and government tax policy encourages it. As an example if you leave your employer you have the right to keep your employer-sponsored health insurance through something called COBRA.

A number of programs also exist to provide tax-deferred investment accounts for various social purposes. These are available for retirement, healthcare, and higher education. The programs cost the government nothing in expenditures, but reduce tax revenue (probably by less than the public benefit however).

There is much more of a safety net for the poorer classes, but as a general rule of thumb many of these programs run through women since they're dependent on the number of children you have (and, of course, household income). If you're a single man or your baby mamma doesn't want you around anymore, tough luck.

Is it not clear that the US generals have sold out America’s defenses to Israel – J-MIC rules the Pentagon. We fight wars for Israel – we are NOT defending America. We have lost our Twentieth century defensive edge. We now have a military that is good at assassinating village chiefs (and their families).

The US generals keep expanding the geography of their killing until there is going to be a true world war.

The cold-hard fact is that our US generals are defending Israel not America. Our US generals are not doing American defense – they are doing Israeli offence.

Why is every US general a supporter of Israel?

The trillions of dollars spent on the ME are depleting our defenses at home. Is this not obvious?

The J-MIC must be taken on!

Think Peace — Art

p.s. In true fascist order, Netanyahu is meeting Trump today – in un-American fashion, there will be no free press asking questions.

p.s. How does that bastard get to dictate to our country – ignoring our values.

Russian technology is not superior, but they are not burdened with as much "free market" corruption as the USA. Billions of American dollars are wasted on fraudulent programs like lasers:

http://www.g2mil.com/Laser_Scams.htm

and the SM-3 missile defense scam:

http://www.g2mil.com/NMD_Fraud.htm

The USA should return to the method used before the 1980s where government organizations developed weapons and then contracted production to the private sector. Most of these military/government organizations still exist, but have been sidelined, so crap is developed by a free market profit seeking monopoly, like the F-35.

In my book free on-line book:

http://www.g2mil.com/war.htm

I list the major areas that modern military forces choose to ignore:

1. The lethality of of precision guided munitions to easily destroy ultra-expensive ships, tanks, and aircraft has been dismissed.

2. The use of small lasers to blind combatants. The US Marine Corps recently added expensive "dazzlers" to its machine guns that will prove more effective than the gun itself. (pictured)

3. The inability to replace munitions stocks in a timely manner. Most nations have limited stockpiles and the complexity of some make rapid production impossible. If the USA becomes involved in a major war that lasts longer than a month, it will have to pause for several months until new munitions are produced and delivered.

4. The humanitarian disaster that would result by disrupting the fragile economy of megacities. This occurred during World War II, but today's big cities are ten times larger! Armies may face hoards of millions of starving people begging for help.

5. The millions of civilian vehicles on the world's roads. It is impossible to tell if they are friend or foe unless inspected up close. Soldiers can use this to their advantage, which makes urban operations very dangerous for both civilians and soldiers.

6. The problem of thousands of commercial aircraft roaming the globe. Agents aboard can collect intelligence and these present long-range targeting problems for precision guided munitions that may kill hundreds of innocents.

8. Modern anti-tank weapons are equally effective anti-aircraft weapons against slower targets like low flying helicopters and aircraft transports. A helicopter assault or airborne drop near a modern army will be disastrous as anti-tank missiles shoot upwards and knock down aircraft.

9. Modern body armor has made 5.56mm and even 7.62mm bullets less lethal.

10. Fleets of surface ships cannot hide for long in big oceans.

The “free market” corruption begins on a level of personal dignity (morals). Both morality and patriotism are sorely lacking by the current US/UK power elite that has become a chimera composed of Cheney and the Lobby. We are dealing not so much with a “fraudulent” program as with deeply immoral bloody opportunists. http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2018/03/syria-leaks-suites-propaganda-and-dividends-presented-by-publius-tacitus.html#comment-6a00d8341c72e153ef01bb09f8f311970d From comment section. David Habakkuk said: ” … In relation to the ‘White Helmets’, the ‘case for the prosecution’ was set out in detail in a presentation by the journalist Vanessa Beeley to the Swiss Press Club in Geneva back in November, with Richard Labévière also involved – available, together with links to a range of supporting material, at http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/11/28/vanessa-beeley-presents-new-white-helmets-expose-to-swiss-press-club-geneva/. The first appearance of the ‘Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media’ was in a letter submitted to the ‘Comment is Free’ section of the ‘Guardian’, and not published by them, in response to an article by Olivia Solon which attacked Beeley among others. It claimed that critical discussion of the White Helmets in Syria has been ‘propagated online by a network of anti-imperialist activists, conspiracy theorists and trolls with the support of the Russian government’. The article rejected by the ‘CiF’ was reproduced, together with an account of the failure of the ‘Guardian’ either to publish it or to defend their decision not to, on Tim Hayward’s blog in January. It contains links to material which calls into question the role of the ‘White Helmets.’ (See https://timhayward.wordpress.com/2018/01/12/the-guardian-white-helmets-and-silenced-comment/ ) … Concluding his demolition of the ‘Joint Intelligence Mechanism’ report into Khan Sheikhoun, also published on Hayward’s blog, Paul McKeigue writes: ‘The weight of evidence favouring the hypothesis of a managed massacre over a chemical attack has obvious implications also for the role of the White Helmets in this incident.’ (See https://timhayward.wordpress.com/2017/12/22/khan-sheikhoun-chemical-attack-guest-blog-featuring-paul-mckeigues-reassessment/ .) This brings us back to a critical question about the ‘false flag’ chemical attacks in Syria, and in particular Khan Sheikhoun – that of whether the involvement of elements in Western élites is purely a matter of ‘ex post facto’ involvement in cover-ups, or whether ‘ex ante’ involvement in planning these operations may also be at issue.And, of course, in relation to Benjamin Norman and other FCO people, prominent among them Matthew Rycroft and Boris Johnson, a question really does arise as to: ‘What did they know and when did they know it?’” - Olivia Solon — a presstitute for Guardian - Benjamin Norman — a “diplomat” at the British Embassy in DC - Matthew Rycroft — a British “diplomat” at UN - Boris Johnston — a person of easy morals and Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, UK

You can be absolutely 100% sure that huge amount of money will be thrown at Pentagon, but as some people here astutely observed, most of it will be wasted or stolen.

May be that was Putin's idea. Let them outspend and enlarge the astronomic budget US's deficit. In the end with 2500 strategic nukes on each side, MAD will remain firmly in place with or whitout NMD.

May be that was Putin’s idea. Let them outspend and enlarge the astronomic budget US’s deficit. In the end with 2500 strategic nukes on each side, MAD will remain firmly in place with or whitout NMD.

The main idea was to show futility of most American strategies re: Russia, including useless and immensely expensive ABM program. This, by definition, should “coerce” American “elites” into more constructive mode. Again, the whole nature of the American military posture since 1970s is lack of any desire to play by the rules, including within the more-or-less stable framework of MAD. In fact, the US constantly tries to exit MAD framework. Now it is over for US, it may try to exit MAD whatever it wants–it doesn’t matter: US is completely defenseless against both nuclear and conventional HPWs. Again, since 2010 Russia’s Military Doctrine, reiterated in 2014 edition of same, the use of high precision conventional weapons IS stated as means of strategic power containment. Obviously, most of US “experts” seldom comprehend what they read from Russia, but it is their problem.

As per bankrupting itself–sorry, but the US is already bankrupt and the only exit from this situation for US is coercion of Europe and American re-industrialization. Is it possible at this stage? I doubt it but we still have to wait and see. A huge part of the US “dominance” was its claim to being capable to power wrestle anyone on the planet. This is absolutely NOT the case anymore. hasn’t been for quite some time, without this military mythology the globalist economic “order” begins to crumble–a process we all observe today. So, in summary–it is not one or the other thing, it is many things together working both in concert and providing synergistic effect. On March 1st Putin declared Russia’s absolute sovereignty–as I said, we are entering new post-Pax American world, and I mean right this very moment as I type this.

I've been reading your site for a long time. Some points on your response to Martyanov:

The USA should return to the method used before the 1980s where government organizations developed weapons and then contracted production to the private sector. Most of these military/government organizations still exist, but have been sidelined, so crap is developed by a free market profit seeking monopoly, like the F-35.

Is this really accurate? There was plenty of development by commercial organizations prior to the 1980s, and military arsenals have their own failure records. Examples of commercial successes in the past:

*Most aircraft produced until the F-111 (which ultimately matured into a fine aircraftt), and then afterwards the entire teen series of fighters as well as the A-10
*The original AR-15, which the army chose to screw up royally

Then we have examples of arsenal and lab failures such as:

*Refusing the .276 round for the M1 Garand and later insisting on the 7.62 NATO in contravention of the superior British alternative
*The aforementioned M16 screwup
*BuOrd's disgraceful WW2 torpedo foulup

Now one thing that has changed substantially is that most ship classes used to be developed by the Navy itself and its government yards, but now they're developed by contractors (badly, as shown by the Gerald Ford class, the Zumwalt class, and the LCS joke). But the old navy did solicit commercial designs as well.

Some more competition is needed. This can come from renewed development by arsenals, but also we need trust busting in the defense industry.

Program management is obviously a huge disaster, but who knows why? Cost-plus contracts? Officers and politicians effectively playing for the contractors rather than the country? Ignorance, as Martyanov suggested?

2. The use of small lasers to blind combatants. The US Marine Corps recently added expensive “dazzlers” to its machine guns that will prove more effective than the gun itself. (pictured)

Skeptical. Against trained infantry gunfire is largely suppressive. The enemy is destroyed by indirect fires and making use of microterrain to maneuver.

That said adds another useful weapon for relatively little weight, and depending on the power of the laser and the weather that day it could outperform gunfire at longer ranges.

3. The inability to replace munitions stocks in a timely manner. Most nations have limited stockpiles and the complexity of some make rapid production impossible. If the USA becomes involved in a major war that lasts longer than a month, it will have to pause for several months until new munitions are produced and delivered.

This was an issue even in the Cold War (NATO officially planned on 30 days warstocks, but based on the experience of the Yom Kippur war it probably had one-two weeks). It was also an issue for all combatants in the early stages of both world wars.

It seems difficult to plan for this, especially as politicians are likely to balk at huge warstocks which must be frequently replaced or refurbished.

More important may be simply maintaining a strong industrial base--woops.

5. The millions of civilian vehicles on the world’s roads. It is impossible to tell if they are friend or foe unless inspected up close. Soldiers can use this to their advantage, which makes urban operations very dangerous for both civilians and soldiers.

This, incidentally, also makes the interdiction mission for airpower that was so successful in the summer of 1944 effectively useless against any industrialized opponent.

In the summer of 1944 we had 11,000 fighters (as well as medium bombers, unsure how many) in Western Europe facing a few thousand German trucks and a small number of rail lines.

In a modern conflict we'd have a few hundred fighters and attack aircraft against
millions of trucks. Modern aircraft can attack more targets successfully, but the disparity is too huge to overcome.

9. Modern body armor has made 5.56mm and even 7.62mm bullets less lethal.

This is solvable problem in my view. Increase the sectional density and length of the bullet, and increase muzzle velocity.

Explosive and raufoss rounds might work as well, though the small size of bullets makes me skeptical.

Precision-guided glide weapons of relatively small size (e.g. 40mm in diameter) are another option.

You also don't need to kill an opponent to achieve mission kill, and even someone in hard-kill body armor will be suppressed by gunfire which then allows for attack by indirect fires.

10. Fleets of surface ships cannot hide for long in big oceans.

Embarrassingly the USN's official response to the Chinese demonstration of an antiship ballistic missile was that battlegroups would be hard to find. Sure.

Even if that were true, to attack the enemy on land the battlegroups must get close to shore, where they are easily found and attacked.

The USN basically stopped even bothering to defend its surface fleet against serious opponents after the cancellation of the F-111B.

The F-111B was a logical response to the threat of Soviet naval aviation. With a combat range of over 2,000 nautical miles on internal fuel, it could credibly keep Soviet maritime patrol bombers out of launch range for their anti-ship missiles (which were to be armed with tactical nuclear warheads).

The replacement F-14 only had a range of about 500 nautical miles. While a fine aircraft in many respect, it was useless in its planned role of fleet defense.

Advanced long-range SAMs could do the job instead of long-range interceptors, but the US lags Russia badly here and has no long-range SAMs of any kind.

This leaves missile defense and CIWS (where the US also lags many foreign nations, even small European ones!) to protect the fleet.

Good luck with that.

Serious things that might defend the fleet:

*Long-range interceptors
*Long-range SAMs (USN equivalent of S-300/400/500 family)
*High energy microwaves (with enough energy a bubble field could destroy missile electronics)
*Upgraded and more numerous CIWS, ideally with lasers and rail guns if they ever get those to work
*Actually armoring ships

But even if all of these expensive technologies work as intended, they'll still vulnerable to being overwhelmed by salvos as well as nuclear warheads.

Probably we should accept that Karl Doenitz was right about the future of naval warfare--nothing on the surface.

The navy should instead be made up mostly of submarines and long range aircraft. Surface forces would be limited to mine sweepers, ASW corvettes, and green/brown water small boats (like the LCS except not expensive and trash).

The entire amphibious assault concept is ridiculous as well. Amphibious assaults were hard enough to pull off in WW2 against inferior opponents hard pressed on other fronts.

Against a prepared opponent with modern technology they will fail spectacularly.

And against an UNPREPARED opponent no specialized and expensive amphibious forces are not needed. They can be quickly conducted using improvised equipment as the Germans did in 1917 and again in 1940.

“This is solvable problem in my view. Increase the sectional density and length of the bullet, and increase muzzle velocity.”

Cool gun by not what I had in mind. A 7mm diameter, 42mm long bullet made of copper-jacketed tungsten in a plastic telescoped cartridge. As much ignition pressure as can reasonably be achieved with modern metallurgy in a small arm not weighing more than five pounds empty, 24" or longer barrel (bullpup to reduce overall weapon length).

Raufoss round (same size) might also be effective given that it allows quite a long penetrator and considerable quantities of thermite compared to existing cartridges owing to the long bullet length.

This kind of cartridge would probably weigh around the same as the current 7.62 NATO. A bit heavy in other words, but not the end of the world. Especially if real effort is made on lightening much of the other bullshit carried by the infantry.

I don't have a personal experience but some contacts and plenty of "Internet info" (which can be deceiving on this issue).
It's "known" that the US "social safety net" is the worst in West.
That number, though, if correct, is a good one.

I mean, with that amount of available money provided by the State , how do we see all that visible homelessness and poverty in US?
I know that drugs and alcohol, with general stupidity, can do that.

I guess my question is:
A family of four, breadwinner losing his/her job (offshoring, outsourcing, downsizing) getting on that "net", renting......would they lose their accommodation and effectively have problem with food, shelter and medical help, while on that net while finding another job?
And, how long can they be on that net?
I know I can read about that a lot, but condensed info from a person on the ground there would be much more helpful.

Just curious.

That number, though, if correct, is a good one.

Social Security benefits are based on your lifetime contributions and what age you choose to begin taking them.

So a higher earner will get more benefits (up to the cap, around $106k if memory serves) than a modest earner–simply because he paid more into the system.

You can elect to take benefits as early as 62, or as later as 70.5.

The system was designed with psychological, political intent. The idea was that the program would be impossible for conservatives to eliminate because all wage earners would feel entitled to pensions that they themselves had paid for (though strictly speaking it is a pure tax and your taxes are paid to current retirees).

In act early economists recommend the system be funded out of general revenues and said there was no need for a payroll tax. FDR said he wanted people to take ownership in the system so no one could ever destroy the system.

It is remarkably effective. It’s remarkable effective and neither Ronald Reagan nor George W Bush lasted more than a few weeks when they tried to roll back the system.

The only wins conservatives have scored against it are taxing some of the benefits (began in the 80s) and making some changes to cost-of-living inflation adjustments in the 90s.

It’s called the third rail of politics here and every old person is outraged by any suggestion that benefits should be reduced.

There is however a lot of propaganda about the alleged future unaffordability of the system, and it now strikes me that there is an elite consensus in favor of modifying the system to reduce benefits.

It’s “known” that the US “social safety net” is the worst in West.

I mean, with that amount of available money provided by the State , how do we see all that visible homelessness and poverty in US? I know that drugs and alcohol, with general stupidity, can do that.

I guess my question is: A family of four, breadwinner losing his/her job (offshoring, outsourcing, downsizing) getting on that “net”, renting……would they lose their accommodation and effectively have problem with food, shelter and medical help, while on that net while finding another job? And, how long can they be on that net? I know I can read about that a lot, but condensed info from a person on the ground there would be much more helpful.

As a general rule of thumb the safety net is very weak for those in the middle class, whereas in many other Western countries there are universal social insurance systems intended to cover everyone regardless of income. Healthcare is an obvious one across the West, and much ink has been spilled about the outrageous cost of college in America. The government’s safety net here is simply to allow young folks to go into unlimited state-guaranteed debt.

Something of a stealth middle class safety net is provided by the corporate sector in the form of health insurance, pensions, maternity leave, etc. This has been reduced since the 80s but still exist, and government tax policy encourages it. As an example if you leave your employer you have the right to keep your employer-sponsored health insurance through something called COBRA.

A number of programs also exist to provide tax-deferred investment accounts for various social purposes. These are available for retirement, healthcare, and higher education. The programs cost the government nothing in expenditures, but reduce tax revenue (probably by less than the public benefit however).

There is much more of a safety net for the poorer classes, but as a general rule of thumb many of these programs run through women since they’re dependent on the number of children you have (and, of course, household income). If you’re a single man or your baby mamma doesn’t want you around anymore, tough luck.

…there is an elite consensus in favor of modifying the system to reduce benefits.

Of course. It’s the in their nature.

As a general rule of thumb the safety net is very weak for those in the middle class, whereas in many other Western countries there are universal social insurance systems intended to cover everyone regardless of income.

Interesting re former and true around here re later. The level of “assistance” depends on assessed needs of a person/family, not on their previous income.

There is much more of a safety net for the poorer classes, but as a general rule of thumb many of these programs run through women since they’re dependent on the number of children you have (and, of course, household income). If you’re a single man or your baby mamma doesn’t want you around anymore, tough luck.

And

…single man unable to find any work or charity, etc.

Interesting too.

I will sound simplistic and naive, but it's really hard to reconcile those extremes in US.
I mean, I have no problem with capable, talented, or just ruthless and greedy, or just lucky, having all those zillions. Good on them.
But, at the same time, in the same place, people who are going through the trash cans.
Yes, I've heard all the explanations, all sound very reasonable, some don't even understand (stupid me), but , still......

I was in Hawaii recently and watching that was ....well....interesting.
You walk around and see extraordinary opulence, often gluttony really, and at the same time all those homeless. Yes, I do know the story about them, but, still......
Plenty of those, apparently, vets.

I haven't got the slightest how to fix that, or even is it possible, but, still........something simply does not compute.

Apologies to the "Team Russia".
Back to "Russia great" and "US bad".
Hell, you could even use this comment for that purpose.

I don't think the engineering is that difficult; all that is needed is ceramic-composite vehicle perhaps gyro guided, because rockets wouldn't work in a plasma environment, I think, that can endure re-entry. The power is from falling down the gravity well. All that is needed is a guidance, that's why I thought of a gyroscopic analog, system.

It should be simple and efficient and not too costly. So I don't think it will take too long to implement.

If there any engineers whose field of expertise reading this, their thoughts would be appreciated.

‘…RE: The Avangar glider.

I don’t think the engineering is that difficult…’

Oh my…

The easy answer is…if it was so easy…why isn’t everybody doing it already…?

And here is a little more coherent explanation…

As you hinted with your mention of ceramic composites…the primary challenge is the heat load generated by skin friction heating…

Let’s put some numbers to those temperatures…

A plasma is by definition a gas with an electric charge…for air, which is composed of mostly nitrogen [~3/4] and oxygen [~1/4]…the temperature at which ionization occurs is about 9000 C…

The process happens by first N2 and O2 molecules separating [dissociating] into O an N atoms…

This is an incredibly high temperature that no known material can withstand…reinforced carbon carbon is used on spacecraft and is good to about 2000 C…

Now spacecraft re-entering the atmosphere are designed to slow down as they begin encountering air drag at the upper atmosphere [where the air is still quite thin...]

They do this by using blunt leading edge shapes…here is how a typical capsule looks like…

The Space Shuttle similarly uses its blunt underbody to slow down…

An ICBM warhead also inevitably slows down somewhat…but not because it is designed to…it is designed to plummet right in…but still retains a lot of speed as it approaches the ground [it is not designed to hit the ground but to air-burst...]

But it spends a lot less time going that fast…giving the heat less time to transfer into its surface… and even then the heat load is a major challenge…

Now with a gliding warhead…you obviously do not want to slow it down like you would the space shuttle…which comes down to land at airplane like speeds…it would be easy to shoot down…

But the glider is also going to spend a lot more time flying through the thick air down low…so the heat transfer will have more time to build up…

So here we bring in the other big part of the puzzle…which is the shockwave…in that illustration of the capsule above…the shock wave is seen just in front of the convex blunt curvature of the body…

Fortunately…that shock wave also shields the heat…the temps behind the shockwave are much lower…a serendipitous fact of the physical world without which space travel…or at least the re-entry part…would be impossible…

Even so…those heat loads are truly huge…

Now the shockwave geometry clearly mimics the body shape…as seen in that capsule…with a glider you are still going to have a shockwave…but because it is designed to glide it must be more aerodynamic…ie its lift must be greater than its drag…

That means the shape of the shockwave…and its proximity to the body…which is very important…may not be so ideal…

This is a very large challenge in terms of aerodynamics and thermodynamics…

Then you have other issues…how are you going to control the flight path…having a gyro is fine…but you need actual control surfaces on the craft…ie movable ‘flippers’ if you will…

Those will require some kind of mechanical or hydro-mechanical actuation…where does the power for that come from…?

As long as you've gone that high in the sky, it makes sense to just go a bit higher and eliminate most heat/friction problems. It is far easier to carry some LOX and pop up outside the atmosphere and then back down, than to push thru thin air. Your vehicle mass is one third as much with a fat lifting body than a long and sleek hypersonic with three times more mass. In short, hypersonics are BS, just use faster and cheaper rockets.

You obviously have a mathematical and perhaps engineering background that I lack; mathematics was always a foreign language I could never master. I hope you're still checking this thread since my reply is a day late. And perhaps the proverbial dollar short as well.

Lacking your expertise, I wasn't aware of the specific difficulties that you cited.

I think you're not saying that the technology is impossible just that we (Americans) have no idea how the Russians did it. I assume Mossad is hard at work to find out. ;)

Well, instead of fighting the plasma, could the Russians have developed a technology not based on materials but on manipulation, i.e. could they have one of those tiny nuclear reactors on board and generate electric fields so that they're not relying on matter shielding but manipulating the plasma and shock wave for the glider to ride? Really, I have no idea, I'm just throwing ideas out there. I read that Corning Ware was based on materials used in the nose cones of ballistic missiles but I didn't know no such material could withstand the heat.

Russia (Soviets) were working on plasma technology so perhaps that's the answer. Or they're super advanced in metallurgy-ceramics but from what you say, no known matter could withstand the heat.

I wonder if the CIA is checking this board.

Gilbert Doctorow, whom I respect immensely, viewed the *surprise* as an intelligence failure.

I am sorry Andrei, but I am not convinced of the Russian technological superiority. I believe that the Americans will produce even scarier videos of attacks on Russia, than those used by Putin in his presentation – showing attacks on US.

In order to ensure complete fairness, I propose that the winner of this technological war be decided by the Academy of motion pictures and should be awarded at the next year’s Oscars with a statue for best special effects.

History – as recorded by that biggest arbiter of truth - the Hollywood movies – clearly shows that more Germans died in the American made movies than in the Russian ones – thus it’s obvious that US won that war pretty much single-handedly.

Similarly – if Hollywood produces better videos this time around too – the winning decision should go to US and Russia has no business messing with them.

Of course, there will be skeptics that will say that US is flirting with disaster by trying to bully Russia – based on some historical precedence. I don’t really think that US are flirting with disaster, I think that they are having a full blown affair.

I’ve often thought there should be international war games where, for example, the Russians are authorized to launch a missile “attack” on some deserted area with dummy warheads, and we’re obliged to shoot them down to thwart the attack, and vice versa.

Russian technology is not superior, but they are not burdened with as much "free market" corruption as the USA. Billions of American dollars are wasted on fraudulent programs like lasers:

http://www.g2mil.com/Laser_Scams.htm

and the SM-3 missile defense scam:

http://www.g2mil.com/NMD_Fraud.htm

The USA should return to the method used before the 1980s where government organizations developed weapons and then contracted production to the private sector. Most of these military/government organizations still exist, but have been sidelined, so crap is developed by a free market profit seeking monopoly, like the F-35.

In my book free on-line book:

http://www.g2mil.com/war.htm

I list the major areas that modern military forces choose to ignore:

1. The lethality of of precision guided munitions to easily destroy ultra-expensive ships, tanks, and aircraft has been dismissed.

2. The use of small lasers to blind combatants. The US Marine Corps recently added expensive "dazzlers" to its machine guns that will prove more effective than the gun itself. (pictured)

3. The inability to replace munitions stocks in a timely manner. Most nations have limited stockpiles and the complexity of some make rapid production impossible. If the USA becomes involved in a major war that lasts longer than a month, it will have to pause for several months until new munitions are produced and delivered.

4. The humanitarian disaster that would result by disrupting the fragile economy of megacities. This occurred during World War II, but today's big cities are ten times larger! Armies may face hoards of millions of starving people begging for help.

5. The millions of civilian vehicles on the world's roads. It is impossible to tell if they are friend or foe unless inspected up close. Soldiers can use this to their advantage, which makes urban operations very dangerous for both civilians and soldiers.

6. The problem of thousands of commercial aircraft roaming the globe. Agents aboard can collect intelligence and these present long-range targeting problems for precision guided munitions that may kill hundreds of innocents.

8. Modern anti-tank weapons are equally effective anti-aircraft weapons against slower targets like low flying helicopters and aircraft transports. A helicopter assault or airborne drop near a modern army will be disastrous as anti-tank missiles shoot upwards and knock down aircraft.

9. Modern body armor has made 5.56mm and even 7.62mm bullets less lethal.

10. Fleets of surface ships cannot hide for long in big oceans.

The USA should return to the method used before the 1980s where government organizations developed weapons and then contracted production to the private sector.

This is a blatant admission that free market economy which is the source of innovation and efficiency is a hoax and a failure. Free market economy is nothing but a façade and a 3 Cup Scam to stealing from the people en masse without raising a fuss.

Certainly the "pure" free market (whatever that means) appears to have some deficiencies with respect to a mixed economy.

And it seems the government, once committed, can produce a lot of basic scientific and technological innovation that the market is unlikely to.

But the free market routinely delivers innovations in product features, efficiency, and quality. The free market also delivers innovation in management, distribution, warehousing, etc. New products and services are also routinely created.

Are you suggesting we adopt a command economy?

Free markets do many useful things, but the state must regulate the market (especially to prevent monopoly, or monopoly abuse--and maybe macroeconomic and monetary management) and also provide what the market cannot (in the case of "big science" research quite literally, and in the case of social benefits a question of what kind of society we want).

Defense is a special role in that the main, or often only customer, for these products is the government itself. This makes it easy to corrupt the customer, as the customer's agents incentives are poorly aligned with the customer. The principal-agent problem exist in the private sector as well but is less of a problem as not only are people fired routinely but entire companies fail (or have management replaced by vengeful stockholders).

Great analysis and perspective. A few points, first there are plenty of skeptics I suggest a real world demonstration of some of these new weapon platforms will be necessary to prove their existence. Second will Russia use their new and potentially superior position to offer protection to its neighbours and eventually kick America out of Eurasia. Finally, if these new weapons are the game changer on the battlefield the author suggests then the real fire works might occur in economic sphere, without the threat of military action against them how many countries stop using the US dollar for trade and US treasuries for reserves.

Second will Russia use their new and potentially superior position to offer protection to its neighbours and eventually kick America out of Eurasia.

As Syria’s example shows, one of the major Russian exports of the future will be, in fact–already is, a political stability and defense against “regime changes”. This “product” will be in a very high demand.

As Syria’s example shows, one of the major Russian exports of the future will be, in fact–already is, a political stability and defense against “regime changes”. This “product” will be in a very high demand.

Why isn't Russia pumping out S200-300-400's like candy?

This would be good for everyone - defense is always moral.

p.s. After the F16 shoot down - have heard of no new Israeli flights into Syria???

I don't have a personal experience but some contacts and plenty of "Internet info" (which can be deceiving on this issue).
It's "known" that the US "social safety net" is the worst in West.
That number, though, if correct, is a good one.

I mean, with that amount of available money provided by the State , how do we see all that visible homelessness and poverty in US?
I know that drugs and alcohol, with general stupidity, can do that.

I guess my question is:
A family of four, breadwinner losing his/her job (offshoring, outsourcing, downsizing) getting on that "net", renting......would they lose their accommodation and effectively have problem with food, shelter and medical help, while on that net while finding another job?
And, how long can they be on that net?
I know I can read about that a lot, but condensed info from a person on the ground there would be much more helpful.

A man, single, late 20s, professional, worked in, say, corporate environment, got "restructured/downsized/outsourced". Salary at the time of being "let go" around 80K. Worked in similar capacity for, say, 6 years. Renting, of course. No savings (kid likes to travel).
So, where I am, well, he does get an "assistance" which will pay for a rent, 3 decent meals per day and he'll have a (state, not private, of course), medical help. Especially in emergencies. And this can last for quite a while, actually.
Bottom line, no need to be homeless, no need to be hungry, and he'll get the basic and emergency medical help.
All the rest, well, that's precisely the initiative to get a job, and do it fast. I mean, not much fun living like that. But, at the same time, no need to sleep rough, beg and go through trash cans.

In the 1970s, NATO sponsored seminars on the Soviet Union's military weaponry. I attended the seminars. We had "hands-on" access to Soviet tanks and other equipment. I was impressed. It was the biggest "bang for the buck" as opposed to the US model of letting private, for-profit contractors design and cost weapons for you. We left the seminars with a heartfelt fear of the Soviet Union's military capability. BTW: Due to a few soldiers going "postal", we were not allowed access to our unit weapons except in the case of an emergency ... or, maybe a war.

After 20 years in the Air Force in air operations and 26 years as a government contractor in finance and procurement, I offer the F-35 as the paradigm of the "death of the US military". Bad design compounded by troubled procurement compounded by non-stop lobbying by politicians and contracts to ignore the obvious = a procurement disaster.

The F-111 program proved that it was not possible to develop a common design that could meet the requirements of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. Carriers vs. land-based airfields. It cannot be done. The contracts and politicians made the case that it could be done. The F-35 is the dismal result.

Russian weapons are designed by the military and then outsourced to government-industries or private contractors for production. US weapons are designed by contractors to maximize profits and then forced on the military services by politicians. Go figure the outcomes.

The F-111 program proved that it was not possible to develop a common design that could meet the requirements of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. Carriers vs. land-based airfields.

The F-111 didn’t prove this at all. An aircraft carrier is just a short airfield, and one with launch catapults and landing restraining wires.

The only fundamental design change requirement is a sturdier landing gear (and no doubt greater corrosion resistance) and arresting hook. It’s also beneficial to decrease the aircraft’s wing-loading, which is not necessarily undesirable in a land-based aircraft though comes with some trade offs (increased drag, reduced top speed, more turbulence in on the deck missions and thus a higher minimum altitude).

Both the F-111 and F-35 for that matter address the wing-loading issue with different wings in air force and naval versions.

Note that prior to the F-111 the F-4 did serve in all three services (and was successfully exported), and the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm successfully employed it on carriers smaller than ours (though WW2-era Midway-class carriers were still in service).

WW2-era USAAF aircraft would’ve worked just fine on carriers if the Navy had wanted them–note that the Spitfire and Fury were both successfully navalized. They even managed to take off from tiny (by today’s standards) carriers with B-25 Mitchells.

The F-14 would’ve worked just fine in the Air Force, and not only was it pitched to the Air Force (as an interceptor, declined) but Iran uses it in its air force.

The main problem with the F-111B is that it was under-powered for its mass to serve in a carrier role as a result of optimistic design targets. The Pratt & Whitney F100 would’ve solved that problem, and it had a first run just three years after the F-111B was cancelled.

And even the F-111B as is would’ve worked just fine on the navy’s supercarriers. Trouble was it didn’t have enough thrust for the old Midway-class carriers.

As for the F-35, here there is a fundamental aerodynamic problem caused by the tri-service requirement. In particular, the Marine Corp’s insistence on a VTOL design (which the Marine Corps never needed before the Harrier for some reason). This effectively ruined the airframe for all three services by adding space for the lift fan.

But many problems with the F-35 have nothing to do with this at all and are simply the result of bad program management. The only other issue I’ve heard stemming from the airframe is some kind of problem with the F-35C’s tail hook, perhaps a consequence of the “stealth” requirement.

How did you know that? As for me, graduated optic-electronic division of an institute, I know that all experiments in 1970-1980th with powerfull lasers
in atmosphere weren't successful due to heterogeneous structure of atmosphere and breakdown phenomenon in it.
I didn't follow the new achievements, but those problems seem to me to be irresistible and so usage of lasers is limited to small distances in atmosphere. In space - yes, it could be used.

Agree. Perhaps some people confuse James Bond movies with reality? I would not want to be on the receiving end ….. waiting for my ‘lasers’ to save me!

The USA should return to the method used before the 1980s where government organizations developed weapons and then contracted production to the private sector.

This is a blatant admission that free market economy which is the source of innovation and efficiency is a hoax and a failure. Free market economy is nothing but a façade and a 3 Cup Scam to stealing from the people en masse without raising a fuss.

Is it?

Certainly the “pure” free market (whatever that means) appears to have some deficiencies with respect to a mixed economy.

And it seems the government, once committed, can produce a lot of basic scientific and technological innovation that the market is unlikely to.

But the free market routinely delivers innovations in product features, efficiency, and quality. The free market also delivers innovation in management, distribution, warehousing, etc. New products and services are also routinely created.

Are you suggesting we adopt a command economy?

Free markets do many useful things, but the state must regulate the market (especially to prevent monopoly, or monopoly abuse–and maybe macroeconomic and monetary management) and also provide what the market cannot (in the case of “big science” research quite literally, and in the case of social benefits a question of what kind of society we want).

Defense is a special role in that the main, or often only customer, for these products is the government itself. This makes it easy to corrupt the customer, as the customer’s agents incentives are poorly aligned with the customer. The principal-agent problem exist in the private sector as well but is less of a problem as not only are people fired routinely but entire companies fail (or have management replaced by vengeful stockholders).

All this "online therapy" about all powerful Russia is just that.
Good for them. Beats pills and alcohol.

The war between The Empire and Russia won't be with high tech weaponry.
It will be by dissent, insurrections and ethic warfare, as in Ukraine.

We'll see how will all that "high tech" work in next flareup there.

Actually I don’t like Russia’s chances against US anymore. Not since Croatia became member of NATO. Their bravery is legendary. They almost helped the Germans at Stalingrad, but they were slaughtered like pigs and none of them made it back home alive. This time again, with the help of the Croats, the US is practically invincible – if the Russians dare to go against the formidable alliance of Croatia and US – they can expect similar results like at Stalingrad.

I’m confused about Russia being upset about withdrawal from the ABM. From what I recall, we made it extremely clear the goal was not to stop Russia’s nuclear forces. We certainly didn’t build or even propose anything like enough capability to stop even 10%. Rather, with the spread of nuclear weapons to Pakistan, not building a deterrent looked like a huge risk. Was this calculus lost on the Russians?

That said, I’m baffled as to why we tried to prosecute a global war on terror without involving Russia. “You have problems with crazy muslims blowing you up? Hey! Us too!” It seemed like the perfect opportunity to cement the end of the cold war with, if not an alliance, at least a working partnership. We probably could have even gotten China engaged. Instead, we tried to wage war in Russia’s backyard without Russia’s support.

So I concur that there were about 15 years of blown diplomatic opportunities, but don’t see why the ABM was one of them.

Putin offered Bush superior sites for a radar to monitor Iran. Bush refused and insisted on a site that monitored Russia as least as well. After that, Putin lost trust in US intentions. Bush screwed up so much.

I’m confused about Russia being upset about withdrawal from the ABM. From what I recall, we made it extremely clear the goal was not to stop Russia’s nuclear forces.

Oh at last! I thought if ZUS establishment represented only by imbeciles, why can't we see them here?
And here you are.
"I’m confused about" US "being upset about" Russias weapons? "we made it extremely clear the goal was not to stop" US's stupid indespencable democracy spreading around the world!

That said, I’m baffled as to why we tried to prosecute a global war on terror without involving Russia.

I’m confused about Russia being upset about withdrawal from the ABM. From what I recall, we made it extremely clear the goal was not to stop Russia’s nuclear forces. We certainly didn’t build or even propose anything like enough capability to stop even 10%.

From your question it appears that you may not have grasped a basic point -- the danger to the Russians of an anti-missile system on their borders is not that it could prevent a Russian 1st strike -- which it obviously couldn't, as you point out -- but that it could stop a Russian
2nd strike in response to a US 1st strike that wiped out 90% (say) of Russia's nuclear forces.

Thus, the Russians saw the US as trying to build a 1st strike capability to which they would be unable to respond, which would completely change the balance of power.

Social Security benefits are based on your lifetime contributions and what age you choose to begin taking them.

So a higher earner will get more benefits (up to the cap, around $106k if memory serves) than a modest earner--simply because he paid more into the system.

You can elect to take benefits as early as 62, or as later as 70.5.

The system was designed with psychological, political intent. The idea was that the program would be impossible for conservatives to eliminate because all wage earners would feel entitled to pensions that they themselves had paid for (though strictly speaking it is a pure tax and your taxes are paid to current retirees).

In act early economists recommend the system be funded out of general revenues and said there was no need for a payroll tax. FDR said he wanted people to take ownership in the system so no one could ever destroy the system.

It is remarkably effective. It's remarkable effective and neither Ronald Reagan nor George W Bush lasted more than a few weeks when they tried to roll back the system.

The only wins conservatives have scored against it are taxing some of the benefits (began in the 80s) and making some changes to cost-of-living inflation adjustments in the 90s.

It's called the third rail of politics here and every old person is outraged by any suggestion that benefits should be reduced.

There is however a lot of propaganda about the alleged future unaffordability of the system, and it now strikes me that there is an elite consensus in favor of modifying the system to reduce benefits.

It’s “known” that the US “social safety net” is the worst in West.

I mean, with that amount of available money provided by the State , how do we see all that visible homelessness and poverty in US?I know that drugs and alcohol, with general stupidity, can do that.

I guess my question is:A family of four, breadwinner losing his/her job (offshoring, outsourcing, downsizing) getting on that “net”, renting……would they lose their accommodation and effectively have problem with food, shelter and medical help, while on that net while finding another job?And, how long can they be on that net?I know I can read about that a lot, but condensed info from a person on the ground there would be much more helpful.

As a general rule of thumb the safety net is very weak for those in the middle class, whereas in many other Western countries there are universal social insurance systems intended to cover everyone regardless of income. Healthcare is an obvious one across the West, and much ink has been spilled about the outrageous cost of college in America. The government's safety net here is simply to allow young folks to go into unlimited state-guaranteed debt.

Something of a stealth middle class safety net is provided by the corporate sector in the form of health insurance, pensions, maternity leave, etc. This has been reduced since the 80s but still exist, and government tax policy encourages it. As an example if you leave your employer you have the right to keep your employer-sponsored health insurance through something called COBRA.

A number of programs also exist to provide tax-deferred investment accounts for various social purposes. These are available for retirement, healthcare, and higher education. The programs cost the government nothing in expenditures, but reduce tax revenue (probably by less than the public benefit however).

There is much more of a safety net for the poorer classes, but as a general rule of thumb many of these programs run through women since they're dependent on the number of children you have (and, of course, household income). If you're a single man or your baby mamma doesn't want you around anymore, tough luck.

Actual cash transfers to the poor have largely been abolished since the 90s, though the Obama Administration revived them in stealth form by greatly expanding disability payments.

As far as the homeless go, if you see them in the winter in cold cities they're probably mentally ill.

White Sandal Women Black Genevieve Dress Haan Weave Cole If they're somewhere warm that's still possible, though then there are other factors such as a lifestyle choice, temporarily down on luck, single man unable to find any work or charity, etc.

Comprehensive and informative. Didn’t know a couple of things.

…there is an elite consensus in favor of modifying the system to reduce benefits.

Of course. It’s the in their nature.

As a general rule of thumb the safety net is very weak for those in the middle class, whereas in many other Western countries there are universal social insurance systems intended to cover everyone regardless of income.

Interesting re former and true around here re later. The level of “assistance” depends on assessed needs of a person/family, not on their previous income.

There is much more of a safety net for the poorer classes, but as a general rule of thumb many of these programs run through women since they’re dependent on the number of children you have (and, of course, household income). If you’re a single man or your baby mamma doesn’t want you around anymore, tough luck.

And

…single man unable to find any work or charity, etc.

Interesting too.

I will sound simplistic and naive, but it’s really hard to reconcile those extremes in US. I mean, I have no problem with capable, talented, or just ruthless and greedy, or just lucky, having all those zillions. Good on them. But, at the same time, in the same place, people who are going through the trash cans. Yes, I’ve heard all the explanations, all sound very reasonable, some don’t even understand (stupid me), but , still……

I was in Hawaii recently and watching that was ….well….interesting. You walk around and see extraordinary opulence, often gluttony really, and at the same time all those homeless. Yes, I do know the story about them, but, still…… Plenty of those, apparently, vets.

I haven’t got the slightest how to fix that, or even is it possible, but, still……..something simply does not compute.

Apologies to the “Team Russia”. Back to “Russia great” and “US bad”. Hell, you could even use this comment for that purpose.

I will sound simplistic and naive, but it’s really hard to reconcile those extremes in US.I mean, I have no problem with capable, talented, or just ruthless and greedy, or just lucky, having all those zillions. Good on them.But, at the same time, in the same place, people who are going through the trash cans.Yes, I’ve heard all the explanations, all sound very reasonable, some don’t even understand (stupid me), but , still……

It's a political choice, pure and simple. And some of the political choices are unrelated to the welfare state--some municipalities have statutes against vagrancy and enforce them. Others don't.

I was in Hawaii recently and watching that was ….well….interesting.You walk around and see extraordinary opulence, often gluttony really, and at the same time all those homeless. Yes, I do know the story about them, but, still……Plenty of those, apparently, vets.

Hawaii, for obvious reasons, is a place with a lot of voluntary homeless. The state has been trying to get rid of them by buying them tickets to the mainland.

Many other voluntary homeless are found in California, Colorado, and Las Vegas. The California ones may be quasi-involuntary as it seems many arrived from the Midwest to get into paid rehab programs, then after running out of money moved into tent cities. But they weren't homeless in the Midwest and panhandling enough for a Greyhound bus ticket is not hard (though embarrassing, or at least it would be for me).

Bear in mind that Americans also donate a lot to charity, both in absolute and per capita terms. So almost every community (besides rich-only suburbs) has a food bank which people donate to, even if there's no social need for it. My secretary for instance is a very kind person and as such is always trying to organize canned food drives for the food bank. The many users of the food bank are what Victorians would call the undeserving poor who are already on the federal SNAP program. The food bank lets them increase their purchases of marketable commodities (such as soda), which can then be traded for supplies not covered by the SNAP program (alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs).

Note that my community does not have homeless people as it's a rural small town.

Lots of churches, including here, will also do things such as offer free Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners to the indigent and purchase toys for their children.

Larger cities have a mix of public and private homeless shelters. There generally isn't enough capacity for all homeless, but that works as many homeless don't like the rules these shelters impose.

Russia has many of those carriers—the program of modernization of MiG-31s to BM was in full steam for some years now, with front line Air Force units seeing a considerable inflow of these aircraft. It is clear now why such modernization was undertaken–it made MiG-31BMs into launch platforms for the Kinzhal.

The intent to use the MiG-31 as a missile carrier opens up another possibility. If the carrier battlegroup is actually within combat range of the MiG-31 itself, it could be attacked with unpowered bombs.

The MiG-31 would approach the target at maximum altitude and airspeed. It would be seen by the battlegroup’s numerous radars, but at that approach the assumption would be that it is on a reconnaissance mission.

A guided bomb could then be released. As the bombs don’t need to carry missile propellant, very large bombs could be used. I don’t know the MiG-31′s maximum payload, but it seems like it could carry four one-ton bombs.

Ideally the bombs would be “stealth” to reduce the battlegroup’s reaction time.

Based on the public specifications of the RIM-174 SM6 the MiG-31 would be impossible to intercept at maximum altitude and speed.

The Su-57 could also be used for this mission, though instead of a maximum speed approach it would employ the lowest feasible airspeed in order to drop a bomb right down the blind radar stack directly above the ship.

Carlo Kopp proposed this approach for the F-22 (which he conducted a decade-long crusade for Australia to acquire) in a naval strike mission.

The intent to use the MiG-31 as a missile carrier opens up another possibility. If the carrier battlegroup is actually within combat range of the MiG-31 itself, it could be attacked with unpowered bombs.

Many guided munitions today, with the exception of high super-sonic and hyper-sonic ASMs, are an easy target for AD systems of Aegis DDGs and CGs. Absolutely makes no sense to run a very expensive and valuable platform and two pilots who are priceless for a suicide mission when there is a huge arsenal of stand-off, uninterceptible strike weapons. Let's put it this way--a no-go zone for any surface combatant today in case of Kinzhal from MiG-31 is around 3 000 kilometers from the shore (depending on inflight refueling of MiG-31, of course). There are other means to make sure that in the so called threatening period any CBG, no matter where, will remain under constant danger of annihilation. So, methinks, MiG-31BMs are just fine as Kinzhal carriers. That is the whole point of Kinzhal--making sure that if, God forbids, things get hot a very effective response is provided.

'...Based on the public specifications of the RIM-174 SM6 the MiG-31 would be impossible to intercept at maximum altitude and speed...'

Say whaat...?

A MiG31 attacking USN surface ships with gravity bombs...?

Well...it's hard to know where to begin...

The MiG31 was designed for a specific job...to defend against cruise missile attacks on the huge Russian expanse...

Designed to fly four abreast...200 km apart...covering an 800 km line and sharing radar data via datalink from those massive Zaslon phased array radars ...[first 'fighter' jet to use phased array and datalink]

That and to intercept fast flying airspace violators like the SR71...which they performed successfully on several occasions...

Throwing this airplane at a modern air defense system would be suicide...its maximum g load is 5...half that of air superiority fighters...

That means its turn radius...especially at high speed...would be very large...aircraft defeat missile shots by outturning them...this is the last airplane you want to try that with...

The specs on that SM6 look pretty impressive...range up to 496 km [268 nm]...speed of M3.5...flight ceiling of 110,000 ft [34 km] which is 12 km higher than the MiG can go...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIM-174_Standard_ERAM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan_MiG-31

I know Russian pilots are gung ho...but nobody's going to try something like that anytime soon...

And besides...when it comes to killing ships the Tu22M3 carries three Kh32 ship killers [six tons each] with standoff range of 1,000 km...

A man, single, late 20s, professional, worked in, say, corporate environment, got “restructured/downsized/outsourced”. Salary at the time of being “let go” around 80K. Worked in similar capacity for, say, 6 years. Renting, of course. No savings (kid likes to travel). So, where I am, well, he does get an “assistance” which will pay for a rent, 3 decent meals per day and he’ll have a (state, not private, of course), medical help. Especially in emergencies. And this can last for quite a while, actually. Bottom line, no need to be homeless, no need to be hungry, and he’ll get the basic and emergency medical help. All the rest, well, that’s precisely the initiative to get a job, and do it fast. I mean, not much fun living like that. But, at the same time, no need to sleep rough, beg and go through trash cans.

First, you are dealing with 50 different systems. Only Social Security is uniform throughout the country.

As a general rule an able-bodied male would receive no permanent assistance in a state like mine (Alabama).

He could get unemployment compensation for 26 weeks provided he complied with the job search rules.

Other than pregnant women, adults in Alabama do not receive Medicare so if he was unable to pay his Cobra insurance premiums he would have no insurance. There are public health clinics but the availability varies by county.

Many that are under 62 try to get approved for Social Security Disability. It is a bit of a racket. The rate goes up during times of high unemployment and is trending higher even though most jobs are less physically demanding. “Mental” disability is one of the best tickets available. This is the route most druggies take.

Playing it straight is a real disadvantage. As a general rule people lose assistance as they earn more. As was pointed out, the ones who do not work and have no “income,” wink, wink, do best with regard to the available assistance.

Many of the “homeless” have mental, alcohol or drug problems (or all three) plus the charitable organizations devoted to providing services for the homeless are extensive. Around the cities free meals are widely available.

I guess it’s possible that Russia has the US against the ropes technologically — but I jointly doubt it. Furthermore, even if they were more technologically advanced, the US has the tactical what no one else on the planet has — an enormous ability to project massive force on any situation. And when looking at the numbers, even if one wanted to cut them by half, it’s jaw dropping.

I think the problem for the US remains, being over extended. That over extension challenges the length of time we could sustain the initial onslaught. One of the blessings of living in the US, of being a citizen here is that the continent itself remains loaded with available resources that should push come to shove we could produce sustainable weapons production, food and supplies. The question is always for how long and how vast said supplies need be . Not only for the military, but for her population as well.

Strategically, there is this, despite our foreign policy mistakes, the US does enormous good around the world, that goes unheralded. And that good will pay off in subtle and complex strategic terms, in my view. Whatever the next major conflict, who are friends are will matter — especially on the question of the breadth and scope extended operations.

And why national cohesion and assimilation matters.

We should cease our damaging immigration policy as to atleast that one end, among others.

the US has the tactical what no one else on the planet has — an enormous ability to project massive force
on any situation.

No, it doesn't, in fact US military didn't fight near peer or peer since Vietnam and the only ability for power projection it has is against third world states.

Strategically, there is this, despite our foreign policy mistakes, the US does enormous good around the world, that goes unheralded. And that good will pay off in subtle and complex strategic terms, in my view.

If I may ask, against whom could US get in position to being overextended, lacking resources, needing strategic depth and ability to

produce sustainable weapons production, food and supplies.

What would be that enemy where

the next major conflict

would demand that?

Every now and then around here pops up a scenario where US slugs out with Russia and/or China, or even those two together.I am really confused. Admit, that could be result of me being product of Cold War, but, it looks to me that everybody else here is product of "War on Terror".Any of posters here, except the author, perhaps, done any exercise of that scenario? On paper, simulators/trainers, in the field? You remember how it looked like? Or, better, how it did not look like?One word: NUKES.MIRVs with each warhead having megaton yield. End of the life as we know. End of civilization on Earth.

Can anybody here imagine a conventional war, ONLY, with Russia?If you can, good on you. I can't. I can imagine it starting as conventional and then escalating, fast, into nuclear. From 0.2 kiloton yields, escalating into megatons in a matter of days.END.

There are couple of good movies about that.I'd recommend British "Threads". Not before major meal. Enjoy the last 20 minutes.

Back to major conventional conflict that US could get involved in.One scenario only at the moment: Iran. Can't see any "over extension/resource" problem there.Another: North Korea. Now, that one could go bad re nukes, so....

Whatever the next major conflict, who are friends are will matter — especially on the question of the breadth and scope extended operations.

Can you name one friend the United States has that's not bought and paid for - including Israel? You can't be serious in trotting out the assertion the US has any friends who would remain friends more than 30 minutes following failure on delivery of the latest foreign aid check.

…there is an elite consensus in favor of modifying the system to reduce benefits.

Of course. It’s the in their nature.

As a general rule of thumb the safety net is very weak for those in the middle class, whereas in many other Western countries there are universal social insurance systems intended to cover everyone regardless of income.

Interesting re former and true around here re later. The level of “assistance” depends on assessed needs of a person/family, not on their previous income.

There is much more of a safety net for the poorer classes, but as a general rule of thumb many of these programs run through women since they’re dependent on the number of children you have (and, of course, household income). If you’re a single man or your baby mamma doesn’t want you around anymore, tough luck.

And

…single man unable to find any work or charity, etc.

Interesting too.

I will sound simplistic and naive, but it's really hard to reconcile those extremes in US.
I mean, I have no problem with capable, talented, or just ruthless and greedy, or just lucky, having all those zillions. Good on them.
But, at the same time, in the same place, people who are going through the trash cans.
Yes, I've heard all the explanations, all sound very reasonable, some don't even understand (stupid me), but , still......

I was in Hawaii recently and watching that was ....well....interesting.
You walk around and see extraordinary opulence, often gluttony really, and at the same time all those homeless. Yes, I do know the story about them, but, still......
Plenty of those, apparently, vets.

I haven't got the slightest how to fix that, or even is it possible, but, still........something simply does not compute.

Apologies to the "Team Russia".
Back to "Russia great" and "US bad".
Hell, you could even use this comment for that purpose.

I will sound simplistic and naive, but it’s really hard to reconcile those extremes in US. I mean, I have no problem with capable, talented, or just ruthless and greedy, or just lucky, having all those zillions. Good on them. But, at the same time, in the same place, people who are going through the trash cans. Yes, I’ve heard all the explanations, all sound very reasonable, some don’t even understand (stupid me), but , still……

It’s a political choice, pure and simple. And some of the political choices are unrelated to the welfare state–some municipalities have statutes against vagrancy and enforce them. Others don’t.

I was in Hawaii recently and watching that was ….well….interesting. You walk around and see extraordinary opulence, often gluttony really, and at the same time all those homeless. Yes, I do know the story about them, but, still…… Plenty of those, apparently, vets.

Hawaii, for obvious reasons, is a place with a lot of voluntary homeless. The state has been trying to get rid of them by buying them tickets to the mainland.

Many other voluntary homeless are found in California, Colorado, and Las Vegas. The California ones may be quasi-involuntary as it seems many arrived from the Midwest to get into paid rehab programs, then after running out of money moved into tent cities. But they weren’t homeless in the Midwest and panhandling enough for a Greyhound bus ticket is not hard (though embarrassing, or at least it would be for me).

Bear in mind that Americans also donate a lot to charity, both in absolute and per capita terms. So almost every community (besides rich-only suburbs) has a food bank which people donate to, even if there’s no social need for it. My secretary for instance is a very kind person and as such is always trying to organize canned food drives for the food bank. The many users of the food bank are what Victorians would call the undeserving poor who are already on the federal SNAP program. The food bank lets them increase their purchases of marketable commodities (such as soda), which can then be traded for supplies not covered by the SNAP program (alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs).

Note that my community does not have homeless people as it’s a rural small town.

Lots of churches, including here, will also do things such as offer free Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners to the indigent and purchase toys for their children.

Larger cities have a mix of public and private homeless shelters. There generally isn’t enough capacity for all homeless, but that works as many homeless don’t like the rules these shelters impose.

'...Larger cities have a mix of public and private homeless shelters. There generally isn’t enough capacity for all homeless, but that works as many homeless don’t like the rules these shelters impose...'

Russia has many of those carriers—the program of modernization of MiG-31s to BM was in full steam for some years now, with front line Air Force units seeing a considerable inflow of these aircraft. It is clear now why such modernization was undertaken–it made MiG-31BMs into launch platforms for the Kinzhal.

The intent to use the MiG-31 as a missile carrier opens up another possibility. If the carrier battlegroup is actually within combat range of the MiG-31 itself, it could be attacked with unpowered bombs.

The MiG-31 would approach the target at maximum altitude and airspeed. It would be seen by the battlegroup's numerous radars, but at that approach the assumption would be that it is on a reconnaissance mission.

A guided bomb could then be released. As the bombs don't need to carry missile propellant, very large bombs could be used. I don't know the MiG-31's maximum payload, but it seems like it could carry four one-ton bombs.

Ideally the bombs would be "stealth" to reduce the battlegroup's reaction time.

Based on the public specifications of the RIM-174 SM6 the MiG-31 would be impossible to intercept at maximum altitude and speed.

The Su-57 could also be used for this mission, though instead of a maximum speed approach it would employ the lowest feasible airspeed in order to drop a bomb right down the blind radar stack directly above the ship.

Carlo Kopp proposed this approach for the F-22 (which he conducted a decade-long crusade for Australia to acquire) in a naval strike mission.

The intent to use the MiG-31 as a missile carrier opens up another possibility. If the carrier battlegroup is actually within combat range of the MiG-31 itself, it could be attacked with unpowered bombs.

Many guided munitions today, with the exception of high super-sonic and hyper-sonic ASMs, are an easy target for AD systems of Aegis DDGs and CGs. Absolutely makes no sense to run a very expensive and valuable platform and two pilots who are priceless for a suicide mission when there is a huge arsenal of stand-off, uninterceptible strike weapons. Let’s put it this way–a no-go zone for any surface combatant today in case of Kinzhal from MiG-31 is around 3 000 kilometers from the shore (depending on inflight refueling of MiG-31, of course). There are other means to make sure that in the so called threatening period any CBG, no matter where, will remain under constant danger of annihilation. So, methinks, MiG-31BMs are just fine as Kinzhal carriers. That is the whole point of Kinzhal–making sure that if, God forbids, things get hot a very effective response is provided.

If this is accurate it seems like a good attack mode, but I don't see how the carrier platform could get in range without being detected. An LO aircraft surely will still be detected by a six megawatt radar before it's in range to conduct a vertical bomb drop.

A large VLO aircraft perhaps could avoid detection, but that doesn't describe anything in Russia's inventory. Perhaps describes the B-2, or did before modern VHF radar proliferated.

It could however be an excellent approach for attacking smaller warships or merchant ships.

Technology is not the factor that makes this leapfrog so hopeless for the US MIC. The structure of Russia's defense industrial base is inherently more agile and efficient because it's a resource of the state and not exclusively a private profit center.

Back when the USSR had just collapsed in the expectation of peace and disarmament, Russian defense industries lost interest in weapons and looked to commercial markets. They pitched projects like satellite systems they could field at one percent of the cost of existing systems. You read that right. Comparable US systems were two orders of magnitude more expensive. Russia's defense industrial base continued to out-innovate the Pentagon.

The US counter is to spend ten times more and piss away 95% of it. The inherent drain on procurement includes loading, such as marketing for more and more programs, and McMansions for the C-Suite parasites, from performance bonuses whose intended incentives can always be negated with revenue growth. It's as if you decided to bulk up, but instead of lifting weights you injected yourself with CIA's metastasizing-cancer toxin. The beltway cannot possibly keep up.

“9. Modern body armor has made 5.56mm and even 7.62mm bullets less lethal.”

I cannot speak to any of the 7.62 rounds available. However, the 55 grain 5.56 round is intended to shatter as it enters a target, and armor will most likely stop it even at close range. The 62 gr bullet, however, has a steel rod in the center, and was designed to Pierce armor.

I guess it's possible that Russia has the US against the ropes technologically -- but I jointly doubt it. Furthermore, even if they were more technologically advanced, the US has the tactical what no one else on the planet has -- an enormous ability to project massive force on any situation. And when looking at the numbers, even if one wanted to cut them by half, it's jaw dropping.

I think the problem for the US remains, being over extended. That over extension challenges the length of time we could sustain the initial onslaught. One of the blessings of living in the US, of being a citizen here is that the continent itself remains loaded with available resources that should push come to shove we could produce sustainable weapons production, food and supplies. The question is always for how long and how vast said supplies need be . Not only for the military, but for her population as well.

Strategically, there is this, despite our foreign policy mistakes, the US does enormous good around the world, that goes unheralded. And that good will pay off in subtle and complex strategic terms, in my view. Whatever the next major conflict, who are friends are will matter -- especially on the question of the breadth and scope extended operations.

And why national cohesion and assimilation matters.

We should cease our damaging immigration policy as to atleast that one end, among others.

the US has the tactical what no one else on the planet has — an enormous ability to project massive force on any situation.

No, it doesn’t, in fact US military didn’t fight near peer or peer since Vietnam and the only ability for power projection it has is against third world states.

Strategically, there is this, despite our foreign policy mistakes, the US does enormous good around the world, that goes unheralded. And that good will pay off in subtle and complex strategic terms, in my view.

I would note that there is a lot of shock and anger in the US media...not only the aspect of 'Russian Aggression'...but also the idea that the Russians have made a major
technology leapfrog over the US...

This is because for decades the US media and govt have loudly touted US and Western technology as far superior to that of the Soviet Union and Russia...

As with any propaganda theme of the West...this canard was eagerly accepted by all...the media...the public...the so-called 'experts' etc...

In a culture and at a historical time where
'technology' is fascinating to people...[despite the fact that they do not understand even the
basic physical and technical side of it]... it is seen as a source of national power...

We have arrived at this point in time where it's all about the technology...and the corollary...

'...Our technology is the best in the world...especially our military technology...'

Of course...those who are technically literate and do in fact understand from a professional perspective the aerospace technology in particular...and will have likely been exposed to Russian and Soviet technical circles [such is the nature of science...it is and has always been an interactive, multinational field...]

...So for those people the Putin announcement of March 1, really does not come as a big surprise at all...many would who are familiar with the
vast scientific and technical potential of this nation...are not shocked to see some very significant technical breakthroughs...

Still, speaking as one such individual, who has long taken the view that the Russians have the people and institutional tradition to pull of some amazing technological advances in aerospace, in particular...the magnitude of the leap described in the Putin address is still difficult to process...

If these technologies are as
mature as Putin has implied...then this is
massive news in the aerospace domain...

I will only highlight
one of the new weapons systems here...the Kinzhal air-launched, hypersonic anti-ship missile...

What we know so far...it is an air-launched, maneuvering missile with an unprecedented range of 2,000 km [1,080 nautical miles]...and an unprecedented speed of Mach 10...[7,600 mph at sea level]...

If true...this is an astounding leap in cruise missile technology...ie if we consider here that
'cruise' means a
maneuverable missile as opposed to one that flies on a simple ballistic trajectory like any piece of artillery...

Let us compare to what is out there now...the
Kh22 anti-ship missile was put into service in 1962...56 years ago...

The missile weighs 5,800 kg and has a range of 600 km [324 nm]...with a maximum speed of M4.6 [3,500 mph]...

This was the original Soviet carrier-killer...there is nothing remotely similar in the West...the updated version that entered service in 2016...
the Kh32 boasts an increased range of 1,000 km [540 nm]...and a slight increase in speed to M5...

So clearly the groundwork for a
'super-sized' version of this kind of anti-ship missile has been in place for a long time...

Both the Kh models are powered by liquid fuel rocket engines and employ a flight trajectory where the missile first climbs to a high altitude...27 km [90,000 ft] for the KH22...and 40 km [130,000 ft] for the Kh32...

...then either dives at the target to achieve its maximum M4.6 speed [M5 for Kh32]...
maneuvering all the way to the target to make it harder to knock out with air defenses...

...or, alternately, making a shallow dive at M3.5 and then approaches the target flying close to the water surface at a height of 500 ft...

We see one Kh under the starboard wing and another in a conformal [ie half-buried] position under the fuselage...the port wing would carry a third Kh...

The below graphic shows the two flight profiles of the Kh...

http://ausairpower.net/XIMG/000-Kh-22-Backfire-C-CONOPS-1.png

And here we see a 'friendly' cockpit tour of the Tu22M by USN Admiral Charles R. Larson...Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet...during the Cold War...

http://ausairpower.net/V-MF/Backfire-Cockpit-DN-SC-91-02246-1S.jpg

So we see that the new Kinzhal missile claims
twice the range and twice the speed of the existing Kh32...

We know nothing about the propulsion system of this missile nor its flight characteristics...ie how high does it go...and how does it make its final approach to the target...?

More on that in a bit...but first let's look at the overall picture...

The primary target for this missile would
not be USN aircraft carriers but Aegis missile cruisers and destroyers carrying the SM3 ballistic missile defense interceptors [BMD]...as Andrei has pointed out...

The retaliatory strike by Russia would be
neutralized by the US missile defense...relying largely on the Aegis SM3 interceptor...which can be located on ships close to Russia's coast...[as well as the Aegis Ashore installations in Eastern Europe]...

This kind of first-strike has been openly discussed in US policy circles for more than a decade...

'...According to our model, such a simplified surprise attack would have a good chance of destroying every Russian bomber base, submarine, and ICBM...'

'...On March 1, the
Strategic Studies Quarterly, a journal published by the U.S. Air Force’s Air University, published an article admitting what...the Russians, have long been warning against: that U.S. strategic policy under the Obama Administration is seeking to create the capability to launch a
first strike against Russia and/or China,
without fear of nuclear retaliation..'

Clearly Putin's announcement of these new weapons is to bring a
reality check to such unhinged individuals...who may in fact represent the consensus in Washington to this day...

The threat as outlined in the above scenario is very real...the Trident 2 can cover 1,850 km [1,000 nm] in just 12.5 minutes...

That's with what is called a minimum energy trajectory or MET...which is the trajectory angle for maximum range for a given amount of rocket energy...

The US has been exploring depressed trajectory [DT] ICBM flights which would reduce the 1,850 km flight time to just
7.2 minutes...

The Trident 2 ICBM has a much greater maximum range [up to 10,000 km] but the obvious advantage is to get as close as possible before launching...it is estimated that a US sub several hundred km offshore in international waters could hit the most inland Russian missile silos and bomber bases with a maximum range of about
3,000 km...

It is not clear whether the US has
achieved the depressed trajectory capability, as this type of flight path results in increased heat loading [due to atmospheric friction]...and also reduced accuracy...due to unpredictable atmospheric effects like air density and winds aloft...

It is also unclear
just how well the SM3 interceptor actually works...prominent critics like MIT's Prof. Ted Postol, a weapons expert and former science adviser to the pentagon...have pointed out that the SM3 flight test
'success' has been overstated and doubts that the system is actually capable of bringing down an enemy missile in an actual combat scenario...

We also note that out of the 33 Aegis BMD equipped warships...17 are in the Pacific Fleet [plus five more such Japanese navy ships...yet the US has not attempted to shoot down a North Korean missile...many of which have overflown Japan...

However...whatever the failings of the current system may or may not be...the rational assumption is that
sooner or later this capability will in fact be functional...the same assumption can be made for the depressed trajectory launch of Trident 2 submarine ICBMs...

Here is how the Aegis SM3 is supposed to work...

https://s20.postimg.org/h1h93lbwt/blockiia-footprint5.png

We note here that the system is designed to intercept target ballistic missiles in two stages of their flight...right after the boost phase when the rocket burns out and the missile is
ascending in space...and secondly...during the
descent portion of the midcourse trajectory...

Clearly...the idea of placing this system on warships and in Eastern Europe is to position them for an
'ascent' stage intercept...as opposed to descent...where they would ideally be positioned near the targets being defended...ie the US...

So this is the big picture view of why the Kinzhal is necessary to Russia's defense...it is designed to keep those Aegis BMD warships at bay...

With a range of 2,000 km the Aegis warships that may be positioned off Russia's huge coastline will effectively be neutralized...in the event of a conflict or even crisis situation...those ships would have to back off to a safe distance, out of reach of Kinzhal, and thereby putting the SM3 out of range for a possible intercept...

Now the big question...is the Kinzhal technology real...is it actually in deployment as Putin stated...?

Well...Putin is not known for bluffing...and it would be counterproductive to do so in this case...

But looking at the technical side...we see that an enormous leap is required here from the Kh32 to the Kinzhal...

Andrei speculates that the missile technology may be based on the ground-launched Iskander missile...
from what we know about this missile it is capable of maneuvering both in the boost phase and the presumably the terminal phase as well...

'...The missile is
controlled during the whole flight with gas-dynamic and aerodynamic control surfaces. It uses small fins to reduce its radar signature...

...It is rumored that during flight it can
maneuver at different altitudes and trajectories and can turn at up to 20 to 30 G to evade anti-ballistic missiles...'

The maximum speed is M6 to M7 and the missile does not leave the atmosphere...reaching a maximum height of 50 km [164,000 ft]...

The range is 500 km...although this limitation may be self-imposed due to the IMF treaty...the Iskander is said to be very accurate with a circular error probable of just 5 to 7 meters...and some sources in the West say as low as 2 meters...

The missile weight is 3,800 kg...which is two tons less than the Kh with a similar range...but ground-launched...an air launch at high speed and altitude would extend the same missile's range considerably...

So we see that the basic pieces are indeed there to put together something like the Kinzhal...an Iskander derivative with a bigger, more powerful rocket motor [solid fuel] to reach a higher speed of M10...

Air launched form the unique
MiG31 interceptor which is the
only combat aircraft in existence designed to fly its entire mission at supersonic speeds...maximum speed is M2.8 and
supersonic cruise is M2.4...

Its service ceiling is 20 km [66,000 ft] so an air-launch of an Iskander type missile will get the rocket to nearly half its altitude and one quarter its speed...the fuel energy saved by air launch means the rocket can fly longer and faster...

The big challenge is going to be aerodynamic skin heating due to the very high speeds coming down into the thick air at sea level...this is a materials science challenge that is similar to spacecraft atmospheric re-entry temperatures...on the order of possibly 2,000 C...

Putting the pieces together...the conclusion seems to point in the direction that Putin is not bluffing about the Kinzhal...this technology leap may in fact be very
real...and going into service as we speak...

Also notable is the historical parallel...the Kh22 antiship missile and Tu22 aircraft were conceived in the 1950s as an
asymmetrical response to USN aircraft carriers...and judging by the look on that admiral's face while sitting in the Tu22 driver's seat...there is much reason to believe that it would have
worked as advertised...

The Kinzhal is now the asymmetrical and cost-effective response to an even bigger and more threatening challenge...the US long march to an effective ballistic missile defense encirclement of Russia that could someday make a US nuclear first strike possible and survivable...

This shows that the SM3 is designed to intercept a ballistic missile two distinct phases of flight…the ascent portion of the target flight…starting right after rocket burnout and as the target is ascending in space on its ballistic trajectory…

And secondly…the descent portion of the flight…where the target missile has passed its midpoint apogee and is descending toward the target…

Now here is the important part that somehow got lost in the original post…

We see here that intercepting the target ballistic missile in the ascent phase requires the placement of the Aegis SM3 interceptors close to where the target missile is launched…

In the case of Russia…that would mean getting those Aegis ships near to Russia’s coast or the Aegis Ashore installations in Eastern Europe…

If the intent was to intercept those target missiles on the descent part of the flight…the Aegis ships would be placed near the US…and Aegis Ashore would be placed right in the US…not Eastern Europe…

So by understanding how midcourse missile defense works we see also the intent of those ballistic missile interceptors…they are aimed squarely at Russia…

The other part that got lost in my original post was my introductory remarks about the Iskander ground-launched missile…which is suggested by Andrei as the possible building block for the Kinzhal…

To briefly recap about what is known about the Iskander…it weighs 3,800 kg…two tons less than the Kh22 and has about the same range…500 km…

This range limitation as noted already is likely artificial in order to meet the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty [INF] which limits intermediate range missiles to 500 km maximum range…

Which means adding a longer fuel section…it is a solid-fuel rocket so can be modular…can increase the range…

The missile carries a warhead of up to 800 kg…so it is definitely able to sink a large warship with a direct hit…the Kh22 used a 1,000 kg warhead…which is said to have made a quite massive hole…

‘…Soviet Tests showed that a Kh-22MA equipped with 1,000 kg (2,205 lb) RDX warhead and with an approach speed of 800 m/s (Mach 2.4), used against an aircraft carrier, will make a 22 m2 (240 sq ft) hole, and the warhead’s cumulative jet will burn through internal ship compartments up to a depth of 12 m…’

That’s with an approach speed of just M2.4…with a higher approach speed the kinetic energy itself would be greater…kinetic energy increases by the square of speed…so just doubling impact speed to ~M5 would quadruple the kinetic energy…M10 would mean 16 times the kinetic energy on impact…[in comparison to the Kh22 impacting at M2.4...

Although it should be noted here that the likely impact speed would certainly be less than M10...perhaps half that I would estimate...due to drag in the thick air down low...we see the same with the Kh22...[the M5 is a top speed...not impact speed...which is not actually given]…

In any case…it means a smaller warhead than that used on the Kh22 would actually be adequate…freeing up more fuel payload…

As I noted already…the Iskander is fully maneuverable throughout its flight…suing both gas dynamic [ie thrust vector by means of paddles in the exhaust gas stream]…and aerodynamic control…ie by means of control surfaces like movable fins…

Also as noted the MiG31 is the ideal platform for this missile…the Tu22 is bigger and can carry three Kh22/32…which is 18 tons…but it does not have the speed or altitude capability of the MiG31…

Also important is that the MiG31 is designed to cruise at M2.4…it is the only aircraft in existence…since demise of the Concorde to cruise supersonically at high Mach number…neither the Tu22 nor the bigger Tu160 heavy bomber is designed for sustained supersonic…only dashes…

This is true of all combat aircraft…

For instance the F22 is designed for only a 100 nm sprint in its supercruise at M1.8…

So the bottom line as far as the Kinzhal is concerned is that this is probably the most likely of the weapons mentioned by Putin that is closest to actual use…all the pieces are definitely there…the Iskander technology is well proven and has seen combat…2008 Georgia war…

The MiG31 has been a uniquely powerful aircraft for three decades now and is a perfect match for this type of missile…

As for the other weapons…certainly the nuclear powered cruise missile is intriguing…but we will leave that for another day…lots to unpack there…

A good post. I wouldn’t be quick in dissmissal of the nuclear powered missile though. The theoretical tech of NRE (nuclear rocket engine) is something that was in R&D in USSR starting in late 60’s. The work on the principles has not even been so secret, if you are familiar with Soviet Sci-Fi, you’d notice that the works of 70’s very realistically describe the 3 types of nuclear propulsion system: anameson (anti-meson), pulse (series of micronuclear explosions) and for specifically atmospheric applications - superheating of ambient atmosphere by the means of a small nuclear reactor. The actual R&D work has however been classified in early 80’s - there was a technological breakthrough made in USSR that made the theory possible for practical implementation. In early 90’s, some of the work has leaked to US and NASA had announced its “own” breakthrough in creation of 2 models of NRE - both closely resembling what has been described in USSR since the 70’s. It is a known publicized fact that Russia has made great breakthroughs in the materials resistant to pressure and temperature. Russia is also the world leading powerhouse when it comes to nuclear technologies and has been that for over 2 decades. Connecting the dots, I wouldn’t doubt for a second the existence of a tested and practical NRE solution based on at least one of the principles. My guess it is the one based on superheating of the atmospheric air.

I guess it's possible that Russia has the US against the ropes technologically -- but I jointly doubt it. Furthermore, even if they were more technologically advanced, the US has the tactical what no one else on the planet has -- an enormous ability to project massive force on any situation. And when looking at the numbers, even if one wanted to cut them by half, it's jaw dropping.

I think the problem for the US remains, being over extended. That over extension challenges the length of time we could sustain the initial onslaught. One of the blessings of living in the US, of being a citizen here is that the continent itself remains loaded with available resources that should push come to shove we could produce sustainable weapons production, food and supplies. The question is always for how long and how vast said supplies need be . Not only for the military, but for her population as well.

Strategically, there is this, despite our foreign policy mistakes, the US does enormous good around the world, that goes unheralded. And that good will pay off in subtle and complex strategic terms, in my view. Whatever the next major conflict, who are friends are will matter -- especially on the question of the breadth and scope extended operations.

And why national cohesion and assimilation matters.

We should cease our damaging immigration policy as to atleast that one end, among others.

Curious.

If I may ask, against whom could US get in position to being overextended, lacking resources, needing strategic depth and ability to

produce sustainable weapons production, food and supplies.

What would be that enemy where

the next major conflict

would demand that?

Every now and then around here pops up a scenario where US slugs out with Russia and/or China, or even those two together. I am really confused. Admit, that could be result of me being product of Cold War, but, it looks to me that everybody else here is product of “War on Terror”. Any of posters here, except the author, perhaps, done any exercise of that scenario? On paper, simulators/trainers, in the field? You remember how it looked like? Or, better, how it did not look like? One word: NUKES. MIRVs with each warhead having megaton yield. End of the life as we know. End of civilization on Earth.

Can anybody here imagine a conventional war, ONLY, with Russia? If you can, good on you. I can’t. I can imagine it starting as conventional and then escalating, fast, into nuclear. From 0.2 kiloton yields, escalating into megatons in a matter of days. END.

There are couple of good movies about that. I’d recommend British “Threads”. Not before major meal. Enjoy the last 20 minutes.

Back to major conventional conflict that US could get involved in. One scenario only at the moment: Iran. Can’t see any “over extension/resource” problem there. Another: North Korea. Now, that one could go bad re nukes, so….

watched "threads", thanks for the recommendation. It is indeed a good one, which dramatically shows how ordinary people are helplessly watching their country committing suicide at the hands of their "leadership"

I am sorry Andrei, but I am not convinced of the Russian technological superiority. I believe that the Americans will produce even scarier videos of attacks on Russia, than those used by Putin in his presentation – showing attacks on US.

In order to ensure complete fairness, I propose that the winner of this technological war be decided by the Academy of motion pictures and should be awarded at the next year’s Oscars with a statue for best special effects.

History – as recorded by that biggest arbiter of truth - the Hollywood movies – clearly shows that more Germans died in the American made movies than in the Russian ones – thus it’s obvious that US won that war pretty much single-handedly.

Similarly – if Hollywood produces better videos this time around too – the winning decision should go to US and Russia has no business messing with them.

Of course, there will be skeptics that will say that US is flirting with disaster by trying to bully Russia – based on some historical precedence. I don’t really think that US are flirting with disaster, I think that they are having a full blown affair.

A man, single, late 20s, professional, worked in, say, corporate environment, got "restructured/downsized/outsourced". Salary at the time of being "let go" around 80K. Worked in similar capacity for, say, 6 years. Renting, of course. No savings (kid likes to travel).
So, where I am, well, he does get an "assistance" which will pay for a rent, 3 decent meals per day and he'll have a (state, not private, of course), medical help. Especially in emergencies. And this can last for quite a while, actually.
Bottom line, no need to be homeless, no need to be hungry, and he'll get the basic and emergency medical help.
All the rest, well, that's precisely the initiative to get a job, and do it fast. I mean, not much fun living like that. But, at the same time, no need to sleep rough, beg and go through trash cans.

So..the same guy in US, how would that look like?

So.. the same guy in US, how would that look like?

First, you are dealing with 50 different systems. Only Social Security is uniform throughout the country.

As a general rule an able-bodied male would receive no permanent assistance in a state like mine (Alabama).

He could get unemployment compensation for 26 weeks provided he complied with the job search rules.

Other than pregnant women, adults in Alabama do not receive Medicare so if he was unable to pay his Cobra insurance premiums he would have no insurance. There are public health clinics but the availability varies by county.

Many that are under 62 try to get approved for Social Security Disability. It is a bit of a racket. The rate goes up during times of high unemployment and is trending higher even though most jobs are less physically demanding. “Mental” disability is one of the best tickets available. This is the route most druggies take.

Playing it straight is a real disadvantage. As a general rule people lose assistance as they earn more. As was pointed out, the ones who do not work and have no “income,” wink, wink, do best with regard to the available assistance.

Many of the “homeless” have mental, alcohol or drug problems (or all three) plus the charitable organizations devoted to providing services for the homeless are extensive. Around the cities free meals are widely available.

How did you know that? As for me, graduated optic-electronic division of an institute, I know that all experiments in 1970-1980th with powerfull lasers
in atmosphere weren't successful due to heterogeneous structure of atmosphere and breakdown phenomenon in it.
I didn't follow the new achievements, but those problems seem to me to be irresistible and so usage of lasers is limited to small distances in atmosphere. In space - yes, it could be used.

I've been reading your site for a long time. Some points on your response to Martyanov:

The USA should return to the method used before the 1980s where government organizations developed weapons and then contracted production to the private sector. Most of these military/government organizations still exist, but have been sidelined, so crap is developed by a free market profit seeking monopoly, like the F-35.

Is this really accurate? There was plenty of development by commercial organizations prior to the 1980s, and military arsenals have their own failure records. Examples of commercial successes in the past:

*Most aircraft produced until the F-111 (which ultimately matured into a fine aircraftt), and then afterwards the entire teen series of fighters as well as the A-10
*The original AR-15, which the army chose to screw up royally

Then we have examples of arsenal and lab failures such as:

*Refusing the .276 round for the M1 Garand and later insisting on the 7.62 NATO in contravention of the superior British alternative
*The aforementioned M16 screwup
*BuOrd's disgraceful WW2 torpedo foulup

Now one thing that has changed substantially is that most ship classes used to be developed by the Navy itself and its government yards, but now they're developed by contractors (badly, as shown by the Gerald Ford class, the Zumwalt class, and the LCS joke). But the old navy did solicit commercial designs as well.

Some more competition is needed. This can come from renewed development by arsenals, but also we need trust busting in the defense industry.

Program management is obviously a huge disaster, but who knows why? Cost-plus contracts? Officers and politicians effectively playing for the contractors rather than the country? Ignorance, as Martyanov suggested?

2. The use of small lasers to blind combatants. The US Marine Corps recently added expensive “dazzlers” to its machine guns that will prove more effective than the gun itself. (pictured)

Skeptical. Against trained infantry gunfire is largely suppressive. The enemy is destroyed by indirect fires and making use of microterrain to maneuver.

That said adds another useful weapon for relatively little weight, and depending on the power of the laser and the weather that day it could outperform gunfire at longer ranges.

3. The inability to replace munitions stocks in a timely manner. Most nations have limited stockpiles and the complexity of some make rapid production impossible. If the USA becomes involved in a major war that lasts longer than a month, it will have to pause for several months until new munitions are produced and delivered.

This was an issue even in the Cold War (NATO officially planned on 30 days warstocks, but based on the experience of the Yom Kippur war it probably had one-two weeks). It was also an issue for all combatants in the early stages of both world wars.

It seems difficult to plan for this, especially as politicians are likely to balk at huge warstocks which must be frequently replaced or refurbished.

More important may be simply maintaining a strong industrial base--woops.

5. The millions of civilian vehicles on the world’s roads. It is impossible to tell if they are friend or foe unless inspected up close. Soldiers can use this to their advantage, which makes urban operations very dangerous for both civilians and soldiers.

This, incidentally, also makes the interdiction mission for airpower that was so successful in the summer of 1944 effectively useless against any industrialized opponent.

In the summer of 1944 we had 11,000 fighters (as well as medium bombers, unsure how many) in Western Europe facing a few thousand German trucks and a small number of rail lines.

In a modern conflict we'd have a few hundred fighters and attack aircraft against
millions of trucks. Modern aircraft can attack more targets successfully, but the disparity is too huge to overcome.

9. Modern body armor has made 5.56mm and even 7.62mm bullets less lethal.

This is solvable problem in my view. Increase the sectional density and length of the bullet, and increase muzzle velocity.

Explosive and raufoss rounds might work as well, though the small size of bullets makes me skeptical.

Precision-guided glide weapons of relatively small size (e.g. 40mm in diameter) are another option.

You also don't need to kill an opponent to achieve mission kill, and even someone in hard-kill body armor will be suppressed by gunfire which then allows for attack by indirect fires.

10. Fleets of surface ships cannot hide for long in big oceans.

Embarrassingly the USN's official response to the Chinese demonstration of an antiship ballistic missile was that battlegroups would be hard to find. Sure.

Even if that were true, to attack the enemy on land the battlegroups must get close to shore, where they are easily found and attacked.

The USN basically stopped even bothering to defend its surface fleet against serious opponents after the cancellation of the F-111B.

The F-111B was a logical response to the threat of Soviet naval aviation. With a combat range of over 2,000 nautical miles on internal fuel, it could credibly keep Soviet maritime patrol bombers out of launch range for their anti-ship missiles (which were to be armed with tactical nuclear warheads).

The replacement F-14 only had a range of about 500 nautical miles. While a fine aircraft in many respect, it was useless in its planned role of fleet defense.

Advanced long-range SAMs could do the job instead of long-range interceptors, but the US lags Russia badly here and has no long-range SAMs of any kind.

This leaves missile defense and CIWS (where the US also lags many foreign nations, even small European ones!) to protect the fleet.

Good luck with that.

Serious things that might defend the fleet:

*Long-range interceptors
*Long-range SAMs (USN equivalent of S-300/400/500 family)
*High energy microwaves (with enough energy a bubble field could destroy missile electronics)
*Upgraded and more numerous CIWS, ideally with lasers and rail guns if they ever get those to work
*Actually armoring ships

But even if all of these expensive technologies work as intended, they'll still vulnerable to being overwhelmed by salvos as well as nuclear warheads.

Probably we should accept that Karl Doenitz was right about the future of naval warfare--nothing on the surface.

The navy should instead be made up mostly of submarines and long range aircraft. Surface forces would be limited to mine sweepers, ASW corvettes, and green/brown water small boats (like the LCS except not expensive and trash).

The entire amphibious assault concept is ridiculous as well. Amphibious assaults were hard enough to pull off in WW2 against inferior opponents hard pressed on other fronts.

Against a prepared opponent with modern technology they will fail spectacularly.

And against an UNPREPARED opponent no specialized and expensive amphibious forces are not needed. They can be quickly conducted using improvised equipment as the Germans did in 1917 and again in 1940.

Laser dazzlers I had a look at 20 years ago for non lethal riot control were not effective, even dazzlers for night vision systems.

Panic stations! Nobody outside of Russia, and few enough inside it, I'd guess, have taken Puitn seriously. Putin can't be so stupid as not to realize that, by making his announcement in the run-up to the election, it would be seen as electioneering. That’s just common sense. He also cannot be so stupid as not to realize that the US cannot just let another country announce that it has superior weapons to it. Putin has is already knocking holes in US credibility every day he is allowed to remain in Ukraine. The US reaction will almost certainly be an arms race, which Russia simply cannot afford and maybe even further and better arming of Ukraine. The author’s frantic attempts to plug the hole confirms my suspicion that Putin has lurched into yet another blunder, his seventh by my count.

You, sir, are a consummate idiot, and you are never chary in demonstrating this fact time and time again.

P.S.: If President Putin lurches into more “blunders” than ten, will you need to take off your shoes and socks to keep track of their number? That’ll only work up to twenty of course. It it gets beyond twenty, perhaps Tiny Duck can help you out (although, come to think of it, I am not really sure how many appendages a duck has upon which he/she may count…).

All this "online therapy" about all powerful Russia is just that.
Good for them. Beats pills and alcohol.

The war between The Empire and Russia won't be with high tech weaponry.
It will be by dissent, insurrections and ethic warfare, as in Ukraine.

We'll see how will all that "high tech" work in next flareup there.

The Soviet Union spent 00 years trying to export socialist revolution. Excluding 1947, under the cover of Russian armies in Eastern Europe and China (more or less) it didn’t work. US attempts don’t seem to be making superior progress in comparison. On the other hand, there is a queue for membership of the EU.

...US attempts don’t seem to be making superior progress in comparison.

Probably on the same level just the opposite way.

Soviet troops were on the border of West Germany and Austria. Yugoslavia and Albania were Communist.

Now, US troops are, effectively, on borders with Russia (those "helping" the regime in Kiev). There is no Yugoslavia anymore and all its parts got absorbed into US sphere of influence. Albania too.

Ideologically, what the resident "Team Russia" can't see, US won. Neoliberalism. US vs Russia vs China "strains" don't matter. They just bicker which elites would take the most of the world pie. Such bickering did get us WWI but that's distant past. We are much more civilized and advanced now. Nukes.

Panic stations! Nobody outside of Russia, and few enough inside it, I'd guess, have taken Puitn seriously. Putin can't be so stupid as not to realize that, by making his announcement in the run-up to the election, it would be seen as electioneering. That’s just common sense. He also cannot be so stupid as not to realize that the US cannot just let another country announce that it has superior weapons to it. Putin has is already knocking holes in US credibility every day he is allowed to remain in Ukraine. The US reaction will almost certainly be an arms race, which Russia simply cannot afford and maybe even further and better arming of Ukraine. The author’s frantic attempts to plug the hole confirms my suspicion that Putin has lurched into yet another blunder, his seventh by my count.

Hmm and who told you you could count,up to seven you say can’t prove it my me,now if that rascal would just get out of my beloved Ukraine and turn the gas back on why things would just come up peachy RIGHT.!!!

I will sound simplistic and naive, but it’s really hard to reconcile those extremes in US.I mean, I have no problem with capable, talented, or just ruthless and greedy, or just lucky, having all those zillions. Good on them.But, at the same time, in the same place, people who are going through the trash cans.Yes, I’ve heard all the explanations, all sound very reasonable, some don’t even understand (stupid me), but , still……

It's a political choice, pure and simple. And some of the political choices are unrelated to the welfare state--some municipalities have statutes against vagrancy and enforce them. Others don't.

I was in Hawaii recently and watching that was ….well….interesting.You walk around and see extraordinary opulence, often gluttony really, and at the same time all those homeless. Yes, I do know the story about them, but, still……Plenty of those, apparently, vets.

Hawaii, for obvious reasons, is a place with a lot of voluntary homeless. The state has been trying to get rid of them by buying them tickets to the mainland.

Many other voluntary homeless are found in California, Colorado, and Las Vegas. The California ones may be quasi-involuntary as it seems many arrived from the Midwest to get into paid rehab programs, then after running out of money moved into tent cities. But they weren't homeless in the Midwest and panhandling enough for a Greyhound bus ticket is not hard (though embarrassing, or at least it would be for me).

Bear in mind that Americans also donate a lot to charity, both in absolute and per capita terms. So almost every community (besides rich-only suburbs) has a food bank which people donate to, even if there's no social need for it. My secretary for instance is a very kind person and as such is always trying to organize canned food drives for the food bank. The many users of the food bank are what Victorians would call the undeserving poor who are already on the federal SNAP program. The food bank lets them increase their purchases of marketable commodities (such as soda), which can then be traded for supplies not covered by the SNAP program (alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs).

Note that my community does not have homeless people as it's a rural small town.

Lots of churches, including here, will also do things such as offer free Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners to the indigent and purchase toys for their children.

Larger cities have a mix of public and private homeless shelters. There generally isn't enough capacity for all homeless, but that works as many homeless don't like the rules these shelters impose.

‘…Larger cities have a mix of public and private homeless shelters. There generally isn’t enough capacity for all homeless, but that works as many homeless don’t like the rules these shelters impose…’

An ICBM warhead also inevitably slows down somewhat...but not because it is designed to...it is designed to plummet right in...but still retains a lot of speed as it approaches the ground [it is not designed to hit the ground but to air-burst...]

But it spends a lot
less time going that fast...giving the heat less time to transfer into its surface... and even then the heat load is a major challenge...

Now with a gliding warhead...you obviously do not want to slow it down like you would the space shuttle...which comes down to land at airplane like speeds...it would be easy to shoot down...

But the glider is also going to spend
a lot more time flying through the thick air down low...so the heat transfer will have more time to build up...

So here we bring in the other big part of the puzzle...which is the shockwave...in that illustration of the capsule above...the shock wave is seen just in front of the convex blunt curvature of the body...

Fortunately...that shock wave also shields the heat...the temps behind the shockwave are
much lower...a serendipitous fact of the physical world without which space travel...or at least the re-entry part...would be impossible...

Even so...those heat loads are truly huge...

Now the shockwave geometry clearly mimics the body shape...as seen in that capsule...with a glider you are still going to have a shockwave...but because it is designed to glide it must be more aerodynamic...ie its lift must be greater than its drag...

That means the shape of the shockwave...and its proximity to the body...which is very important...may not be so ideal...

This is a
very large challenge in terms of aerodynamics and thermodynamics...

Then you have other issues...how are you going to control the flight path...having a gyro is fine...but you need actual control surfaces on the craft...ie movable 'flippers' if you will...

Those will require some kind of mechanical or hydro-mechanical actuation...where does the power for that come from...?

What about shielding those mechanical pieces from the heat...?

As you can see it gets complicated pretty fast...

Replace control surfaces by thrusters. But the power source gets difficult.

I guess it's possible that Russia has the US against the ropes technologically -- but I jointly doubt it. Furthermore, even if they were more technologically advanced, the US has the tactical what no one else on the planet has -- an enormous ability to project massive force on any situation. And when looking at the numbers, even if one wanted to cut them by half, it's jaw dropping.

I think the problem for the US remains, being over extended. That over extension challenges the length of time we could sustain the initial onslaught. One of the blessings of living in the US, of being a citizen here is that the continent itself remains loaded with available resources that should push come to shove we could produce sustainable weapons production, food and supplies. The question is always for how long and how vast said supplies need be . Not only for the military, but for her population as well.

Strategically, there is this, despite our foreign policy mistakes, the US does enormous good around the world, that goes unheralded. And that good will pay off in subtle and complex strategic terms, in my view. Whatever the next major conflict, who are friends are will matter -- especially on the question of the breadth and scope extended operations.

And why national cohesion and assimilation matters.

We should cease our damaging immigration policy as to atleast that one end, among others.

‘…Strategically, there is this, despite our foreign policy mistakes, the US does enormous good around the world, that goes unheralded…’

Interesting…I would be interested to hear more…some examples perhaps…

Of course we all know about the [ahem] ‘mistakes’…Iraq…Libya…Syria…Palestinians…etc…

But hey…I’m sure despite these ‘mistakes’ all that do-gooding ‘will pay off in subtle’ ways…as you put it…

I'm confused about Russia being upset about withdrawal from the ABM. From what I recall, we made it extremely clear the goal was not to stop Russia's nuclear forces. We certainly didn't build or even propose anything like enough capability to stop even 10%. Rather, with the spread of nuclear weapons to Pakistan, not building a deterrent looked like a huge risk. Was this calculus lost on the Russians?

That said, I'm baffled as to why we tried to prosecute a global war on terror without involving Russia. "You have problems with crazy muslims blowing you up? Hey! Us too!" It seemed like the perfect opportunity to cement the end of the cold war with, if not an alliance, at least a working partnership. We probably could have even gotten China engaged. Instead, we tried to wage war in Russia's backyard without Russia's support.

So I concur that there were about 15 years of blown diplomatic opportunities, but don't see why the ABM was one of them.

Putin offered Bush superior sites for a radar to monitor Iran. Bush refused and insisted on a site that monitored Russia as least as well. After that, Putin lost trust in US intentions. Bush screwed up so much.

You, sir, are a consummate idiot, and you are never chary in demonstrating this fact time and time again.

P.S.: If President Putin lurches into more "blunders" than ten, will you need to take off your shoes and socks to keep track of their number? That'll only work up to twenty of course. It it gets beyond twenty, perhaps Tiny Duck can help you out (although, come to think of it, I am not really sure how many appendages a duck has upon which he/she may count...).

Wow…my hat is off to you sir…

That has to be the put-down of the year…

Well done…although I doubt much will penetrate that massive bone formation he calls a ‘head…’

The intent to use the MiG-31 as a missile carrier opens up another possibility. If the carrier battlegroup is actually within combat range of the MiG-31 itself, it could be attacked with unpowered bombs.

Many guided munitions today, with the exception of high super-sonic and hyper-sonic ASMs, are an easy target for AD systems of Aegis DDGs and CGs. Absolutely makes no sense to run a very expensive and valuable platform and two pilots who are priceless for a suicide mission when there is a huge arsenal of stand-off, uninterceptible strike weapons. Let's put it this way--a no-go zone for any surface combatant today in case of Kinzhal from MiG-31 is around 3 000 kilometers from the shore (depending on inflight refueling of MiG-31, of course). There are other means to make sure that in the so called threatening period any CBG, no matter where, will remain under constant danger of annihilation. So, methinks, MiG-31BMs are just fine as Kinzhal carriers. That is the whole point of Kinzhal--making sure that if, God forbids, things get hot a very effective response is provided.

I certainly wouldn’t recommend it as a favored approach, though it could come in handy in the event of a munitions shortage.

I was thinking that the fact that the AN/SPY-1 operates in the S-band means a VLO bomb design approach could be successful.

But I see it also has a six megawatt peak power output (compared to 20kW on the F-22 for instance).

If this is accurate it seems like a good attack mode, but I don’t see how the carrier platform could get in range without being detected. An LO aircraft surely will still be detected by a six megawatt radar before it’s in range to conduct a vertical bomb drop.

A large VLO aircraft perhaps could avoid detection, but that doesn’t describe anything in Russia’s inventory. Perhaps describes the B-2, or did before modern VHF radar proliferated.

It could however be an excellent approach for attacking smaller warships or merchant ships.

An aside on the Georgians. Their US/NATO training was limited to operating communications equipment so that they could function in Iraq. Combat training was not included. Another ramshackle post Soviet Army basically.

{Their US/NATO training was limited to operating communications equipment so that they could function in Iraq}{Combat training was not included.}

Not really. (yes, I know: US/NATO is not Israel....Israel was acting as US/NATO proxy)

[This involvement includes the sale of advanced weapons to Georgia and the training of the Georgian army's infantry forces.]*
[The military cooperation between the countries developed swiftly. The fact that Georgia's defense minister, Davit Kezerashvili, is a former Israeli who is fluent in Hebrew contributed to this cooperation.]*

"This is solvable problem in my view. Increase the sectional density and length of the bullet, and increase muzzle velocity."

Found a gun for you :
http://www.anzioironworks.com/MAG-FED-20MM-RIFLE.htm

Cool gun by not what I had in mind. A 7mm diameter, 42mm long bullet made of copper-jacketed tungsten in a plastic telescoped cartridge. As much ignition pressure as can reasonably be achieved with modern metallurgy in a small arm not weighing more than five pounds empty, 24″ or longer barrel (bullpup to reduce overall weapon length).

Raufoss round (same size) might also be effective given that it allows quite a long penetrator and considerable quantities of thermite compared to existing cartridges owing to the long bullet length.

This kind of cartridge would probably weigh around the same as the current 7.62 NATO. A bit heavy in other words, but not the end of the world. Especially if real effort is made on lightening much of the other bullshit carried by the infantry.

!y main comment on these weapons. How to pay for all this, infrastructure renewal, double the growth rate alongside a huge decline in work force and all those new pensioners seeking healthcare? World class Big Data too. Productivity growth needs new investment which needs modest interest rates. That’s not really happening, a Rotenberg project or so excluded.

First, you are dealing with 50 different systems. Only Social Security is uniform throughout the country.

As a general rule an able-bodied male would receive no permanent assistance in a state like mine (Alabama).

He could get unemployment compensation for 26 weeks provided he complied with the job search rules.

Other than pregnant women, adults in Alabama do not receive Medicare so if he was unable to pay his Cobra insurance premiums he would have no insurance. There are public health clinics but the availability varies by county.

Many that are under 62 try to get approved for Social Security Disability. It is a bit of a racket. The rate goes up during times of high unemployment and is trending higher even though most jobs are less physically demanding. “Mental” disability is one of the best tickets available. This is the route most druggies take.

Playing it straight is a real disadvantage. As a general rule people lose assistance as they earn more. As was pointed out, the ones who do not work and have no “income,” wink, wink, do best with regard to the available assistance.

Many of the “homeless” have mental, alcohol or drug problems (or all three) plus the charitable organizations devoted to providing services for the homeless are extensive. Around the cities free meals are widely available.

That's the thinking of some. I don't know if it's true or not. To me it looks like it just makes life more miserable and shorter for the less capable. I guess if you kill of the weaker and less fortunate, then by definition what is left is "stronger" in some sense of the word.
“USA bad, Russia great”.

This new wave of Russo-phobia took me by surprise. I don't believe it is deep seated in fly-over country, mainly being pushed by elites for some unknown (to me) reason. And no, for the benefit of all you 88s, I don't think it is for the benefit of (((them))).

Russia has many of those carriers—the program of modernization of MiG-31s to BM was in full steam for some years now, with front line Air Force units seeing a considerable inflow of these aircraft. It is clear now why such modernization was undertaken–it made MiG-31BMs into launch platforms for the Kinzhal.

The intent to use the MiG-31 as a missile carrier opens up another possibility. If the carrier battlegroup is actually within combat range of the MiG-31 itself, it could be attacked with unpowered bombs.

The MiG-31 would approach the target at maximum altitude and airspeed. It would be seen by the battlegroup's numerous radars, but at that approach the assumption would be that it is on a reconnaissance mission.

A guided bomb could then be released. As the bombs don't need to carry missile propellant, very large bombs could be used. I don't know the MiG-31's maximum payload, but it seems like it could carry four one-ton bombs.

Ideally the bombs would be "stealth" to reduce the battlegroup's reaction time.

Based on the public specifications of the RIM-174 SM6 the MiG-31 would be impossible to intercept at maximum altitude and speed.

The Su-57 could also be used for this mission, though instead of a maximum speed approach it would employ the lowest feasible airspeed in order to drop a bomb right down the blind radar stack directly above the ship.

Carlo Kopp proposed this approach for the F-22 (which he conducted a decade-long crusade for Australia to acquire) in a naval strike mission.

‘…Based on the public specifications of the RIM-174 SM6 the MiG-31 would be impossible to intercept at maximum altitude and speed…’

Say whaat…?

A MiG31 attacking USN surface ships with gravity bombs…?

Well…it’s hard to know where to begin…

The MiG31 was designed for a specific job…to defend against cruise missile attacks on the huge Russian expanse…

Designed to fly four abreast…200 km apart…covering an 800 km line and sharing radar data via datalink from those massive Zaslon phased array radars …[first 'fighter' jet to use phased array and datalink]

That and to intercept fast flying airspace violators like the SR71…which they performed successfully on several occasions…

Throwing this airplane at a modern air defense system would be suicide…its maximum g load is 5…half that of air superiority fighters…

That means its turn radius…especially at high speed…would be very large…aircraft defeat missile shots by outturning them…this is the last airplane you want to try that with…

The specs on that SM6 look pretty impressive…range up to 496 km [268 nm]…speed of M3.5…flight ceiling of 110,000 ft [34 km] which is 12 km higher than the MiG can go…

So we're looking at perhaps 15 minutes to reaching the maximum altitude of the MiG 31, by which time the MiG 31 would be 700 miles or so away--outside the engagement range.

In other words the MiG-31 at maximum speed and altitude cannot be intercepted by the SM6.

Now whether or not it can reach this speed while carrying 8,000 pounds of bombs and have enough fuel to not only outrun the missile shot but all turn back and return to base is another question.

Of course no doubt the calculus of the USN and allied navies is that a sufficiently large missile to engage more distant threats is not worth the additional magazine capacity (and cost) aboard ships in light of the formidable AD systems of the Aegis BMD. More missiles to engage incoming missiles is presumably favored than larger missiles to defeat incoming missile carriers (which in the case of long-range ASM shots is literally thousands of miles).

And dropping bombs at this speed, of course, makes dropping them directly down the blind coverage funnel. So the bombs will be engaged by the Aegis BMD.

An aside on the Georgians. Their US/NATO training was limited to operating communications equipment so that they could function in Iraq. Combat training was not included. Another ramshackle post Soviet Army basically.

{Their US/NATO training was limited to operating communications equipment so that they could function in Iraq}{Combat training was not included.}

Not really. (yes, I know: US/NATO is not Israel….Israel was acting as US/NATO proxy)

[This involvement includes the sale of advanced weapons to Georgia and the training of the Georgian army's infantry forces.]* [The military cooperation between the countries developed swiftly. The fact that Georgia's defense minister, Davit Kezerashvili, is a former Israeli who is fluent in Hebrew contributed to this cooperation.]*

An aside on the Georgians. Their US/NATO training was limited to operating communications equipment so that they could function in Iraq. Combat training was not included. Another ramshackle post Soviet Army basically.

That’s not what I heard…lots of US and Israeli equipment and training…

That’s not what I heard…lots of US and Israeli equipment and training…

Look at Georgia's GDP, then consider how much US and Israeli equipment they could afford to buy. A couple billion dollars over years at best - not necessarily enough to replace even old stuff that was wearing out. They didn't buy any new armor or planes for example. Just a few artillery systems.

Right, a demonstration. Do us Americans a big favor. Drop a hypersonic kinetic warhead on CIA in Langley, on The Farm, Camp Swampy (Fort Peary,) and No Man's Island, on NSA HQ at Fort Meade, and on each of the CIA fusion centers where CIA Gestapo sit and read your tweets. Change our parasitic kleptocratic criminal regime for us. We will strew flowers and sweets in Putin's path.

The Soviet Union spent 00 years trying to export socialist revolution. Excluding 1947, under the cover of Russian armies in Eastern Europe and China (more or less) it didn't work. US attempts don't seem to be making superior progress in comparison. On the other hand, there is a queue for membership of the EU.

Well…not quite sure I got your post.

As for

…US attempts don’t seem to be making superior progress in comparison.

Probably on the same level just the opposite way.

Soviet troops were on the border of West Germany and Austria. Yugoslavia and Albania were Communist.

Now, US troops are, effectively, on borders with Russia (those “helping” the regime in Kiev). There is no Yugoslavia anymore and all its parts got absorbed into US sphere of influence. Albania too.

Ideologically, what the resident “Team Russia” can’t see, US won. Neoliberalism. US vs Russia vs China “strains” don’t matter. They just bicker which elites would take the most of the world pie. Such bickering did get us WWI but that’s distant past. We are much more civilized and advanced now. Nukes.

Second will Russia use their new and potentially superior position to offer protection to its neighbours and eventually kick America out of Eurasia.

As Syria's example shows, one of the major Russian exports of the future will be, in fact--already is, a political stability and defense against "regime changes". This "product" will be in a very high demand.

As Syria’s example shows, one of the major Russian exports of the future will be, in fact–already is, a political stability and defense against “regime changes”. This “product” will be in a very high demand.

Why isn’t Russia pumping out S200-300-400′s like candy?

This would be good for everyone – defense is always moral.

p.s. After the F16 shoot down – have heard of no new Israeli flights into Syria???

When it comes to the subject at hand, if a picture is worth a thousand words, a demonstration would be worth a million or more.

Right, a demonstration. Do us Americans a big favor. Drop a hypersonic kinetic warhead on CIA in Langley, on The Farm, Camp Swampy (Fort Peary,) and No Man’s Island, on NSA HQ at Fort Meade, and on each of the CIA fusion centers where CIA Gestapo sit and read your tweets. Change our parasitic kleptocratic criminal regime for us. We will strew flowers and sweets in Putin’s path.

As Syria’s example shows, one of the major Russian exports of the future will be, in fact–already is, a political stability and defense against “regime changes”. This “product” will be in a very high demand.

Excellent product for sure.

Marketing: “Your country, should it buy this product of ours, will look and feel exactly as Syria. Please, take a look at Syria and, with your own eyes, see how great our product is. We guarantee you the same result.”

Meanwhile...85 percent of Syrians are now living in govt held areas...over 400,000 people have returned to Aleppo...including many Christians...but you wouldn't know that from our media now would you...?

Since you're talking about teams here nonstop...I think you need to support your team...get out the flag Petey...show your support for your soulmates...

Gloating about Syrian tragedy, peterAUS -- in an openly pro-Israel manner? Are you able to see the difference between opportunists (presstitutes and profiteers) and decent (principled and courageous) individuals? Here are some samples for you:
"Vanessa Beeley Presents Exposé on White Helmets at Swiss Press Club in Geneva:"
http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/11/28/vanessa-beeley-presents-new-white-helmets-expose-to-swiss-press-club-geneva/
"Is the UK FCO Financing Terrorism in Syria with Taxpayer Funds?" http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/12/02/white-helmets-local-councils-uk-fco-financing-terrorism-syria-taxpayer-funds/
"Journalist Interrogated, Fired For Linking CIA Weapons Shipments To Syrian Jihadists:" https://www.mintpressnews.com/journalist-interrogated-fired-linking-cia-weapons-shipments-syrian-jihadists/231348/

You should leave humor to professionals, you are clearly not very good at it. But your sad, little effort at negating uncomfortable reality is appreciated, nevertheless. I’d do it too if I was spending $700B a year and had nothing to show for it, except for cartoons and Hollywood propaganda.

So some “Russians” might suffer from an irony deficiency? Well, so do a lot of Americans.

I guess it's possible that Russia has the US against the ropes technologically -- but I jointly doubt it. Furthermore, even if they were more technologically advanced, the US has the tactical what no one else on the planet has -- an enormous ability to project massive force on any situation. And when looking at the numbers, even if one wanted to cut them by half, it's jaw dropping.

I think the problem for the US remains, being over extended. That over extension challenges the length of time we could sustain the initial onslaught. One of the blessings of living in the US, of being a citizen here is that the continent itself remains loaded with available resources that should push come to shove we could produce sustainable weapons production, food and supplies. The question is always for how long and how vast said supplies need be . Not only for the military, but for her population as well.

Strategically, there is this, despite our foreign policy mistakes, the US does enormous good around the world, that goes unheralded. And that good will pay off in subtle and complex strategic terms, in my view. Whatever the next major conflict, who are friends are will matter -- especially on the question of the breadth and scope extended operations.

And why national cohesion and assimilation matters.

We should cease our damaging immigration policy as to atleast that one end, among others.

Whatever the next major conflict, who are friends are will matter — especially on the question of the breadth and scope extended operations.

Can you name one friend the United States has that’s not bought and paid for – including Israel? You can’t be serious in trotting out the assertion the US has any friends who would remain friends more than 30 minutes following failure on delivery of the latest foreign aid check.

The UK, Germany and even France not only pay their way in NATO but send big checks to the US for compulsory equipment purchases Where are those F35's by the way. The US bribes most of the smaller NATO countries to vote it's way. NATO wasmformed to suppress the Western European Union - UK, FR, DE & NL - a defence against the USSR.

That’s the thinking of some. I don’t know if it’s true or not. To me it looks like it just makes life more miserable and shorter for the less capable. I guess if you kill of the weaker and less fortunate, then by definition what is left is “stronger” in some sense of the word. “USA bad, Russia great”.

This new wave of Russo-phobia took me by surprise. I don’t believe it is deep seated in fly-over country, mainly being pushed by elites for some unknown (to me) reason. And no, for the benefit of all you 88s, I don’t think it is for the benefit of (((them))).

To me it looks like it just makes life more miserable and shorter for the less capable. I guess if you kill of the weaker and less fortunate, then by definition what is left is “stronger” in some sense of the word.

Can't disagree.

Still, the fact does remain that the US is the leader of all the Western world and, more importantly, the flow of immigration is still going into US and not back.
So, while you do have a very valid point, well, people still see it as better than the rest. And that does include people from West as well.

On the surface, it's not right really. but, then, we have a society where everyone flocks in. Not only that, but tries very hard to get there. And, when get there, as such immigrants, no safety net whatsoever in the first place.

Well, it's a huge topic and above my paygrade I admit.
Personally, I like here better. But, then, I know a lot of people here who've been working hard to get visa to US. Smart and hard working people.
Well, how about this: I do ,personally, know several families here which have a member living in US. Now....those guys/girls....are the best of them. The most educated, talented, hard working, with the best "delivery" within their spheres. And we are talking medicine, IT, hard science...you name it.
One could say that the best left for US; the second team is here.

This new wave of Russo-phobia took me by surprise.

Me too.
I could understand it "then" where we had the M.A.D. over our heads, plus no Internet, and, well, effectively Cold War.
But now......agree.
Now, I do understand elite's rage against Russia. But an average person buying it is, well, sort of very uncomfortable puzzle.

I don’t believe it is deep seated in fly-over country, mainly being pushed by elites for some unknown (to me) reason.

Maybe I could help.
Snatching that "world masters" away just when they, almost, got it. Russian elites refusing to accept second class role. People in power don't like that. Not at all.
Plus, well, there is something in Protestant/Orthodox thing there too, if not so much as organized religion then cultural.

And no, for the benefit of all you 88s, I don’t think it is for the benefit of (((them))).

Haha...you got me as one of "88s"?
Well, I've been called a lot here (including being Jew, hasbara etc.) but this is new.
O.K.
Let me put that this way: I wouldn't mind a WN ethnostate along the similar lines Israel was when conceived, say, up to '56. Not because I think "we" are better than "them", just "you do your stuff and we'll do ours".
The one I could say that there IS a black/brown/yellow/red/white racism, not only the latest; that homosexuality is not natural; that there IS a difference between men and women. That we, men "think" and not "feel" about serious issues. Etc.Oh, and yes, the "2nd".
What I haven't been, still, able to resolve is the economy of that state and social order but working on it...hehe...Still have, I hope, 20 years to get it. The understanding, not the state that is.

'...Larger cities have a mix of public and private homeless shelters. There generally isn’t enough capacity for all homeless, but that works as many homeless don’t like the rules these shelters impose...'

Gee...it all sounds so wonderful...where do I sign up...?

Not saying it’s wonderful. I support harsh enforcement of vagrancy laws and sending convicted vagrants to CCC-type camps, with halfway houses to place them in employment on release.

If unreformable they should be committed to asylums or perhaps legally entrusted to the care of relatives.

Not saying it’s wonderful. I support harsh enforcement of vagrancy laws and sending convicted vagrants to CCC-type camps, with halfway houses to place them in employment on release.
If unreformable they should be committed to asylums or perhaps legally entrusted to the care of relatives.

There are no enforceable vagrancy laws, haven't been since the 50's. There are no CCC type camps, haven't been since the 40's. There are very few asylums spots available, the "inmates" have been living on the streets since the 60's. "Care" and neglect by relatives can be part of the problem more often than not.

As Syria’s example shows, one of the major Russian exports of the future will be, in fact–already is, a political stability and defense against “regime changes”. This “product” will be in a very high demand.

Excellent product for sure.

Marketing:
"Your country, should it buy this product of ours, will look and feel exactly as Syria. Please, take a look at Syria and, with your own eyes, see how great our product is. We guarantee you the same result."

Amazing.

Get a grip man…

Who is it that is arming the head-choppers…flying them in from all corners of the globe…paying them a monthly stipend…supplying them captagon pills by the barrel…?

Yes…this is what will make Syria great…tweakers with beards and guns shouting Allahu Akbar all day…

You have to realize that as a Croat he was “educated” in a Catholic madrasa school – where the emphasis is not so much on education, but on some more pleasurable, extracurricular activities such as – “In how many different ways can you, young boys make yourself useful to the priest”. That’s why he has comprehension issues – the poor retard.

'...Based on the public specifications of the RIM-174 SM6 the MiG-31 would be impossible to intercept at maximum altitude and speed...'

Say whaat...?

A MiG31 attacking USN surface ships with gravity bombs...?

Well...it's hard to know where to begin...

The MiG31 was designed for a specific job...to defend against cruise missile attacks on the huge Russian expanse...

Designed to fly four abreast...200 km apart...covering an 800 km line and sharing radar data via datalink from those massive Zaslon phased array radars ...[first 'fighter' jet to use phased array and datalink]

That and to intercept fast flying airspace violators like the SR71...which they performed successfully on several occasions...

Throwing this airplane at a modern air defense system would be suicide...its maximum g load is 5...half that of air superiority fighters...

That means its turn radius...especially at high speed...would be very large...aircraft defeat missile shots by outturning them...this is the last airplane you want to try that with...

The specs on that SM6 look pretty impressive...range up to 496 km [268 nm]...speed of M3.5...flight ceiling of 110,000 ft [34 km] which is 12 km higher than the MiG can go...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIM-174_Standard_ERAM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan_MiG-31

I know Russian pilots are gung ho...but nobody's going to try something like that anytime soon...

And besides...when it comes to killing ships the Tu22M3 carries three Kh32 ship killers [six tons each] with standoff range of 1,000 km...

So we’re looking at perhaps 15 minutes to reaching the maximum altitude of the MiG 31, by which time the MiG 31 would be 700 miles or so away–outside the engagement range.

In other words the MiG-31 at maximum speed and altitude cannot be intercepted by the SM6.

Now whether or not it can reach this speed while carrying 8,000 pounds of bombs and have enough fuel to not only outrun the missile shot but all turn back and return to base is another question.

Of course no doubt the calculus of the USN and allied navies is that a sufficiently large missile to engage more distant threats is not worth the additional magazine capacity (and cost) aboard ships in light of the formidable AD systems of the Aegis BMD. More missiles to engage incoming missiles is presumably favored than larger missiles to defeat incoming missile carriers (which in the case of long-range ASM shots is literally thousands of miles).

And dropping bombs at this speed, of course, makes dropping them directly down the blind coverage funnel. So the bombs will be engaged by the Aegis BMD.

You seem very knowledgeable about this stuff. What do you think of this article: http://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/376680-theatrics-or-threat-putin-leans-on-nuclear-hysteria-to-mask?amp&__twitter_impression=true

'...Mach 2.8 in level flight will outrun Mach 3.5 horizontally at any angle over 18 degrees...'

Uh...no...

This is a simple trig vector problem...ie the horizontal speed of the missile in a climb angle of 18 degrees will be 95 percent of its actual speed...

Ie cos(18) = 0.951...

The MiG top speed of M 2.8 is 0.8 [80 percent] of the pursuing missile speed of 3.5...hence the airplane could only outpace the missile if the missile angle is above 36 percent...twice what you stated...

As to the missile climb speed...again your math is off...at that 18 degree angle it will be the sine of the forward speed that will give us the climb...sin(18) = 0.3

which means the missile actual climb rate is still over M1...although it would not be expressed in terms of Mach number anyway...

In order to climb at a rate of M0.7 the missile would have to be shot at a 45 degree angle...

Admittedly the SM6 speed is rather slow at M3.5...about half that of the S300/400 rockets which are about 2 km/s...even the old S200 is actually a speed demon at 2.5 km/s...which is over M7...

But still...

'...So we’re looking at perhaps 15 minutes to reaching the maximum altitude of the MiG 31...'

Well...that's simply ridiculous...

Climbing straight up it would take 18.4 seconds for a M3.5 rocket to reach 20,600 m...the MiG's service ceiling...

Now it would take a few additional seconds for the rocket to accelerate once it pops out of the tube and its motor lights up...not more than 10 seconds or so...considering its small cross-section area and resulting low drag...combined with the high thrust...

So call it 30 seconds...if fired at an intercept angle of 45 degrees...the rocket would take 42 seconds to reach that height...including the 10 second acceleration to top speed of M3.5

At that point the rocket would be 30 km out and 20 km high...

If the radar lock was made before launch and the radar warning receiver on the MiG picked it up instantly...it means he has 30 seconds to make a turn that will break radar lock...

Very doubtful he is going to make that turn tight enough to shake the missile...

At M2.8 and 20 km altitude his speed is 827 m/s...so at maximum 5 g turn his minimum turn radius is going to be 14.25 km...

Turn radius is given by the equation...

https://s14.postimg.org/bsbqyz5lt/turn_radius.jpg

Like I said...first he has to turn...but that 14 km turn radius means flying an arc that is 45 km long...ie 14 x pi = ~45...

At his speed of 827 m/s that's going to take him 54 seconds to make that U-turn...

Now...if he reacted to his radar warning receiver instantly and started the turn...he might have a chance to outrun the shot by the time the admittedly slow missile gets there...

we said 45 seconds...by which time it might be too late...

It would be a game of chicken that I don't anyone would want to play...sorry...

You can be absolutely 100% sure that huge amount of money will be thrown at Pentagon, but as some people here astutely observed, most of it will be wasted or stolen. US will continue to invest into totally bankrupt weapons systems since they are not designed to fight but to make money. The track record of military-technological whopping disasters of the last decade or so is simply stunning--from F-35, to LCS, to now emerging unproven and fantastically expensive technologies for Columbia-class sub, to, basically not working air-defense and anti-missile complexes. This is simply unprecedented in human history.

Not to mention the numerous and immensely large sums (Trillions?) that have simply disappeared “in” the Pentagon. Donald Rumsfeld made one such announcement on 10/11/2001.

The US government may have misspent $21 trillion, a professor at Michigan State University has found. Papers supporting the study briefly went missing just as an audit was announced.

Two departments of the US federal government may have spent as much as $21 trillion on things they can’t account for between 1998 and 2015. At least that’s what Mark Skidmore, a Professor of Economics at MSU specializing in public finance, and his team have found.

They came up with the figure after digging the websites of departments of Defense (DoD) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as well as repots of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) over summer.

The research was triggered by Skidmore hearing Catherine Austin Fitts, a former Assistant Secretary in the HUD in the first Bush administration, saying the Inspector General found $6.5 trillion worth of military spending that the DoD couldn’t account for. She was referring to a July 2016 report by the OIG, but Skidmore thought she must be mistaking billion for trillion. Based on his previous experience with public finances, he thought the figure was too big even for an organization as large as the US military.

“Sometimes you have an adjustment just because you don’t have adequate transactions… so an auditor would just recede. Usually it’s just a small portion of authorized spending, maybe one percent at most. So for the Army one percent would be $1.2 billion of transactions that you just can’t account for,” he explained in an interview with USAWatchdog.com earlier this month.

After discovering that the figure was accurate, he and Fitts collaborated with a pair of graduate students to comb through thousands of reports of the OIG dating back to 1998, when new rules of public accountability for the federal government were set and all the way to 2015, the time of the latest reports available at the time. The research was only for the DoD and the HUD.

“This is incomplete, but we have found $21 trillion in adjustments over that period. The biggest chunk is for the Army. We were able to find 13 of the 17 years and we found about $11.5 trillion just for the Army,” Skidmore said.

That's the thinking of some. I don't know if it's true or not. To me it looks like it just makes life more miserable and shorter for the less capable. I guess if you kill of the weaker and less fortunate, then by definition what is left is "stronger" in some sense of the word.
“USA bad, Russia great”.

This new wave of Russo-phobia took me by surprise. I don't believe it is deep seated in fly-over country, mainly being pushed by elites for some unknown (to me) reason. And no, for the benefit of all you 88s, I don't think it is for the benefit of (((them))).

Hehe…a good one.

To me it looks like it just makes life more miserable and shorter for the less capable. I guess if you kill of the weaker and less fortunate, then by definition what is left is “stronger” in some sense of the word.

Can’t disagree.

Still, the fact does remain that the US is the leader of all the Western world and, more importantly, the flow of immigration is still going into US and not back. So, while you do have a very valid point, well, people still see it as better than the rest. And that does include people from West as well.

On the surface, it’s not right really. but, then, we have a society where everyone flocks in. Not only that, but tries very hard to get there. And, when get there, as such immigrants, no safety net whatsoever in the first place.

Well, it’s a huge topic and above my paygrade I admit. Personally, I like here better. But, then, I know a lot of people here who’ve been working hard to get visa to US. Smart and hard working people. Well, how about this: I do ,personally, know several families here which have a member living in US. Now….those guys/girls….are the best of them. The most educated, talented, hard working, with the best “delivery” within their spheres. And we are talking medicine, IT, hard science…you name it. One could say that the best left for US; the second team is here.

This new wave of Russo-phobia took me by surprise.

Me too. I could understand it “then” where we had the M.A.D. over our heads, plus no Internet, and, well, effectively Cold War. But now……agree. Now, I do understand elite’s rage against Russia. But an average person buying it is, well, sort of very uncomfortable puzzle.

I don’t believe it is deep seated in fly-over country, mainly being pushed by elites for some unknown (to me) reason.

Maybe I could help. Snatching that “world masters” away just when they, almost, got it. Russian elites refusing to accept second class role. People in power don’t like that. Not at all. Plus, well, there is something in Protestant/Orthodox thing there too, if not so much as organized religion then cultural.

And no, for the benefit of all you 88s, I don’t think it is for the benefit of (((them))).

Haha…you got me as one of “88s”? Well, I’ve been called a lot here (including being Jew, hasbara etc.) but this is new. O.K. Let me put that this way: I wouldn’t mind a WN ethnostate along the similar lines Israel was when conceived, say, up to ’56. Not because I think “we” are better than “them”, just “you do your stuff and we’ll do ours”. The one I could say that there IS a black/brown/yellow/red/white racism, not only the latest; that homosexuality is not natural; that there IS a difference between men and women. That we, men “think” and not “feel” about serious issues. Etc.Oh, and yes, the “2nd”. What I haven’t been, still, able to resolve is the economy of that state and social order but working on it…hehe…Still have, I hope, 20 years to get it. The understanding, not the state that is.

So we're looking at perhaps 15 minutes to reaching the maximum altitude of the MiG 31, by which time the MiG 31 would be 700 miles or so away--outside the engagement range.

In other words the MiG-31 at maximum speed and altitude cannot be intercepted by the SM6.

Now whether or not it can reach this speed while carrying 8,000 pounds of bombs and have enough fuel to not only outrun the missile shot but all turn back and return to base is another question.

Of course no doubt the calculus of the USN and allied navies is that a sufficiently large missile to engage more distant threats is not worth the additional magazine capacity (and cost) aboard ships in light of the formidable AD systems of the Aegis BMD. More missiles to engage incoming missiles is presumably favored than larger missiles to defeat incoming missile carriers (which in the case of long-range ASM shots is literally thousands of miles).

And dropping bombs at this speed, of course, makes dropping them directly down the blind coverage funnel. So the bombs will be engaged by the Aegis BMD.

His description of Putin is totally wrong. But those kind of views are nothing new at this point, standard russophobia.

He also seems to describe the Russian military as it was in... maybe around 2010. AFAIK, the basic modernization and reorganization is already largely done, the equipment is mostly modern, etc.

The social situation overall (also in regards to hazing, evaders... whatever the actual term is) has massively improved. At the same time, military service and the military as a whole is viewed much more positively by the Russians, compared to only 5-10 years ago.

Nowadays there are more contractors than conscripts. And of course, it's not true that conscripts are automatically somehow massively inferior, in certain roles that is. These are from the end 2016, now the situation is obviously even "better":
- Officers 205,000
- Contractors 384,000
- Conscripts 275,000
- Total = 864,000 active personnel

Lastly, Putin actually mostly talked about economic and social issues, infrastructure... So the whole narrative is wrong. The weapons showcase was about deterrence, they want to focus on internal issues.

If the brief bio of the author comes close to representing his position and by inference his expertise, the US is in deep doo doo. Beam me up Scotty. Please.

Tom Nichols is a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and an adjunct professor at the Harvard Extension School. His latest book is "The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters." You can follow him on Twitter @RadioFreeTom. The views expressed in this column are his own.

Not saying it's wonderful. I support harsh enforcement of vagrancy laws and sending convicted vagrants to CCC-type camps, with halfway houses to place them in employment on release.

If unreformable they should be committed to asylums or perhaps legally entrusted to the care of relatives.

Not saying it’s wonderful. I support harsh enforcement of vagrancy laws and sending convicted vagrants to CCC-type camps, with halfway houses to place them in employment on release. If unreformable they should be committed to asylums or perhaps legally entrusted to the care of relatives.

There are no enforceable vagrancy laws, haven’t been since the 50′s. There are no CCC type camps, haven’t been since the 40′s. There are very few asylums spots available, the “inmates” have been living on the streets since the 60′s. “Care” and neglect by relatives can be part of the problem more often than not.

Meanwhile...85 percent of Syrians are now living in govt held areas...over 400,000 people have returned to Aleppo...including many Christians...but you wouldn't know that from our media now would you...?

Since you're talking about teams here nonstop...I think you need to support your team...get out the flag Petey...show your support for your soulmates...

You have to realize that as a Croat he was “educated” in a Catholic madrasa school – where the emphasis is not so much on education, but on some more pleasurable, extracurricular activities such as – “In how many different ways can you, young boys make yourself useful to the priest”. That’s why he has comprehension issues – the poor retard.

To me it looks like it just makes life more miserable and shorter for the less capable. I guess if you kill of the weaker and less fortunate, then by definition what is left is “stronger” in some sense of the word.

Can't disagree.

Still, the fact does remain that the US is the leader of all the Western world and, more importantly, the flow of immigration is still going into US and not back.
So, while you do have a very valid point, well, people still see it as better than the rest. And that does include people from West as well.

On the surface, it's not right really. but, then, we have a society where everyone flocks in. Not only that, but tries very hard to get there. And, when get there, as such immigrants, no safety net whatsoever in the first place.

Well, it's a huge topic and above my paygrade I admit.
Personally, I like here better. But, then, I know a lot of people here who've been working hard to get visa to US. Smart and hard working people.
Well, how about this: I do ,personally, know several families here which have a member living in US. Now....those guys/girls....are the best of them. The most educated, talented, hard working, with the best "delivery" within their spheres. And we are talking medicine, IT, hard science...you name it.
One could say that the best left for US; the second team is here.

Me too.
I could understand it "then" where we had the M.A.D. over our heads, plus no Internet, and, well, effectively Cold War.
But now......agree.
Now, I do understand elite's rage against Russia. But an average person buying it is, well, sort of very uncomfortable puzzle.

I don’t believe it is deep seated in fly-over country, mainly being pushed by elites for some unknown (to me) reason.

Maybe I could help.
Snatching that "world masters" away just when they, almost, got it. Russian elites refusing to accept second class role. People in power don't like that. Not at all.
Plus, well, there is something in Protestant/Orthodox thing there too, if not so much as organized religion then cultural.

And no, for the benefit of all you 88s, I don’t think it is for the benefit of (((them))).

Haha...you got me as one of "88s"?
Well, I've been called a lot here (including being Jew, hasbara etc.) but this is new.
O.K.
Let me put that this way: I wouldn't mind a WN ethnostate along the similar lines Israel was when conceived, say, up to '56. Not because I think "we" are better than "them", just "you do your stuff and we'll do ours".
The one I could say that there IS a black/brown/yellow/red/white racism, not only the latest; that homosexuality is not natural; that there IS a difference between men and women. That we, men "think" and not "feel" about serious issues. Etc.Oh, and yes, the "2nd".
What I haven't been, still, able to resolve is the economy of that state and social order but working on it...hehe...Still have, I hope, 20 years to get it. The understanding, not the state that is.

The most educated, talented, hard working, with the best “delivery” within their spheres.

Meritocracy is eclipsing, quotas are rising. I am not sure how long we can live off the fat before the real decline.

Haha…you got me as one of “88s”?

Of course not, not sure how you read that in. Just a pre-empt, tiring if you say you don’t understand Ukraine, etc. then twenty comments; dem Jews.

You, Americans ,did put a very pleasant surprise by electing Trump. Or, better, by not electing The Bitch.
So, hopefully, there is, still, enough of "Founding Fathers" spirit somewhere there to prevent the M.A.D.

Putin's regime won't be able to keep accommodating and retreating. Even the most reasonable person, when faced with a bully, will snap, matter of time.

That's the problem with bullies.....they take being reasonable as being weak.

Putin has been, unfortunately, sending those messages, IMHO. Neocons do believe that he'll, again and again, be "reasonable" and pull back...and back.

My main worry is that they won't recognize the real red line when they reach it.
And it is their fault. The hubris. The ...stupidity.

I am sure that Putin, if we were talking "old days", up to Bush Senior tops, would've done that. In essence, trade his position of power for peace. But not his life and not that life being taken as bitch.
Milosevic, Saddam and the worst case, Qaddafi.

So we're looking at perhaps 15 minutes to reaching the maximum altitude of the MiG 31, by which time the MiG 31 would be 700 miles or so away--outside the engagement range.

In other words the MiG-31 at maximum speed and altitude cannot be intercepted by the SM6.

Now whether or not it can reach this speed while carrying 8,000 pounds of bombs and have enough fuel to not only outrun the missile shot but all turn back and return to base is another question.

Of course no doubt the calculus of the USN and allied navies is that a sufficiently large missile to engage more distant threats is not worth the additional magazine capacity (and cost) aboard ships in light of the formidable AD systems of the Aegis BMD. More missiles to engage incoming missiles is presumably favored than larger missiles to defeat incoming missile carriers (which in the case of long-range ASM shots is literally thousands of miles).

And dropping bombs at this speed, of course, makes dropping them directly down the blind coverage funnel. So the bombs will be engaged by the Aegis BMD.

‘…Mach 2.8 in level flight will outrun Mach 3.5 horizontally at any angle over 18 degrees…’

Uh…no…

This is a simple trig vector problem…ie the horizontal speed of the missile in a climb angle of 18 degrees will be 95 percent of its actual speed…

Ie cos(18) = 0.951…

The MiG top speed of M 2.8 is 0.8 [80 percent] of the pursuing missile speed of 3.5…hence the airplane could only outpace the missile if the missile angle is above 36 percent…twice what you stated…

As to the missile climb speed…again your math is off…at that 18 degree angle it will be the sine of the forward speed that will give us the climb…sin(18) = 0.3

which means the missile actual climb rate is still over M1…although it would not be expressed in terms of Mach number anyway…

In order to climb at a rate of M0.7 the missile would have to be shot at a 45 degree angle…

Admittedly the SM6 speed is rather slow at M3.5…about half that of the S300/400 rockets which are about 2 km/s…even the old S200 is actually a speed demon at 2.5 km/s…which is over M7…

But still…

‘…So we’re looking at perhaps 15 minutes to reaching the maximum altitude of the MiG 31…’

Well…that’s simply ridiculous…

Climbing straight up it would take 18.4 seconds for a M3.5 rocket to reach 20,600 m…the MiG’s service ceiling…

Now it would take a few additional seconds for the rocket to accelerate once it pops out of the tube and its motor lights up…not more than 10 seconds or so…considering its small cross-section area and resulting low drag…combined with the high thrust…

So call it 30 seconds…if fired at an intercept angle of 45 degrees…the rocket would take 42 seconds to reach that height…including the 10 second acceleration to top speed of M3.5

At that point the rocket would be 30 km out and 20 km high…

If the radar lock was made before launch and the radar warning receiver on the MiG picked it up instantly…it means he has 30 seconds to make a turn that will break radar lock…

Very doubtful he is going to make that turn tight enough to shake the missile…

At M2.8 and 20 km altitude his speed is 827 m/s…so at maximum 5 g turn his minimum turn radius is going to be 14.25 km…

Turn radius is given by the equation… Like I said…first he has to turn…but that 14 km turn radius means flying an arc that is 45 km long…ie 14 x pi = ~45…

At his speed of 827 m/s that’s going to take him 54 seconds to make that U-turn…

Now…if he reacted to his radar warning receiver instantly and started the turn…he might have a chance to outrun the shot by the time the admittedly slow missile gets there…

we said 45 seconds…by which time it might be too late…

It would be a game of chicken that I don’t anyone would want to play…sorry…

'...In order to climb at a rate of M0.7 the missile would have to be shot at a 45 degree angle…'

That's not correct...for some reason I was using tangent there instead of sine...

the rocket launch angle would need to get smaller to decrease the climb rate...obviously...not bigger...a rocket flight angle of 12 degrees [to the horizontal] would give an upward component of 0.2... ie sin(12) = 0.2

multiply that my our forward speed of M3.5 and we get an up component of M0.7...

The rest of the calcs look correct...

Also a note that in the formula for turn radius given...the g is for the acceleration of gravity which is 9.8 m/s^2...and the n is for the load factor of 5...that is the number of g's the aircraft is pulling in the bank...

Bottom line is that the math analysis is sound...the pilot flying toward the SAM would have to turn around first if he wants to outrun the shot...which would take time...by which time that missile would have a good chance of getting there...

Depending on the actual circumstances and hence geometry of the engagement...

As Syria’s example shows, one of the major Russian exports of the future will be, in fact–already is, a political stability and defense against “regime changes”. This “product” will be in a very high demand.

Excellent product for sure.

Marketing:
"Your country, should it buy this product of ours, will look and feel exactly as Syria. Please, take a look at Syria and, with your own eyes, see how great our product is. We guarantee you the same result."

Amazing.

Gloating about Syrian tragedy, peterAUS — in an openly pro-Israel manner? Are you able to see the difference between opportunists (presstitutes and profiteers) and decent (principled and courageous) individuals? Here are some samples for you: “Vanessa Beeley Presents Exposé on White Helmets at Swiss Press Club in Geneva:”

The most educated, talented, hard working, with the best “delivery” within their spheres.

Meritocracy is eclipsing, quotas are rising. I am not sure how long we can live off the fat before the real decline.

Haha…you got me as one of “88s”?

Of course not, not sure how you read that in. Just a pre-empt, tiring if you say you don’t understand Ukraine, etc. then twenty comments; dem Jews.

No rain, too much rain, dem Jews.

We are going down, will be taking many with us, sorry.

Thread hijack warning, please skip.

We are going down, will be taking many with us, sorry.

Feels that way.

Well, hopefully, the feeling is wrong.

You, Americans ,did put a very pleasant surprise by electing Trump. Or, better, by not electing The Bitch. So, hopefully, there is, still, enough of “Founding Fathers” spirit somewhere there to prevent the M.A.D.

Putin’s regime won’t be able to keep accommodating and retreating. Even the most reasonable person, when faced with a bully, will snap, matter of time.

That’s the problem with bullies…..they take being reasonable as being weak.

Putin has been, unfortunately, sending those messages, IMHO. Neocons do believe that he’ll, again and again, be “reasonable” and pull back…and back.

My main worry is that they won’t recognize the real red line when they reach it. And it is their fault. The hubris. The …stupidity.

I am sure that Putin, if we were talking “old days”, up to Bush Senior tops, would’ve done that. In essence, trade his position of power for peace. But not his life and not that life being taken as bitch. Milosevic, Saddam and the worst case, Qaddafi.

Gloating about Syrian tragedy, peterAUS -- in an openly pro-Israel manner? Are you able to see the difference between opportunists (presstitutes and profiteers) and decent (principled and courageous) individuals? Here are some samples for you:
"Vanessa Beeley Presents Exposé on White Helmets at Swiss Press Club in Geneva:"
http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/11/28/vanessa-beeley-presents-new-white-helmets-expose-to-swiss-press-club-geneva/
"Is the UK FCO Financing Terrorism in Syria with Taxpayer Funds?" http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/12/02/white-helmets-local-councils-uk-fco-financing-terrorism-syria-taxpayer-funds/
"Journalist Interrogated, Fired For Linking CIA Weapons Shipments To Syrian Jihadists:" https://www.mintpressnews.com/journalist-interrogated-fired-linking-cia-weapons-shipments-syrian-jihadists/231348/

(presstitutes and profiteers) and decent (principled and courageous) individuals?

Get real AM. Although I have read enough of your comments to know that that is not possible.

What exactly was so insulting for you -- the mentioning of the principled and courageous individuals or the impossibility to use any moral standards for rationalizing the ziocons' desire to ruin sovereign Syria?

Guess your family believes religiously in the eternal victimhood and in the right of Jewish people to demand special treatment from "others"-- "because of Holocaust." -- This is over. After the fraternization of the Kagans' clan (via Nuland-Kagan) with neo-Nazi in Ukraine and after Israeli's support for ISIS, Jewish pretenses on superior morality (and similar fantastic inventions) have become unrealistic.

Just a pre-empt, tiring if you say you don’t understand Ukraine, etc. then twenty comments; dem Jews.

No rain, too much rain, dem Jews.

Well, you did utter the trigger word.

Guess your family believes religiously in the eternal victimhood and in the right of Jewish people to demand special treatment from “others”– “because of Holocaust.” — This is over. After the fraternization of the Kagans’ clan (via Nuland-Kagan) with neo-Nazi in Ukraine and after Israeli’s support for ISIS, Jewish pretenses on superior morality (and similar fantastic inventions) have become unrealistic.

Technology is not the factor that makes this leapfrog so hopeless for the US MIC. The structure of Russia’s defense industrial base is inherently more agile and efficient because it’s a resource of the state and not exclusively a private profit center.

I agree with your thesis but the major factor here is a cultural one--a dramatically different attitude to war between Russia and US. I wrote about this here:

http://www.unz.com/article/assessing-russias-military-strength/

and I quote:

In layman’s lingo, the United States lacks geographic, historic, cultural, economic and technological pressures to develop and have a coherent defensive military doctrine and weapons which would help to implement it.

One cannot buy a history (albeit many in Washington think that it is possible) one has to experience it and built national institutions accordingly. US "elites" simply have no grasp what real war is.

Obviously, beyond the greed focused MIC there is a much more serious implication of US last experiencing, but only a medium intensity, war in its Civil War so long ago. The much more serious implication is that it is dishing out war mush more readily than any other nation on the planet. The reason that Ziocon parasites have found such a fertile ground in the US is almost like an isolated island, whose people consider war to be entertainment (shock & awe), have never had any serious family or home losses from it and are dumb and uneducated enough to be pulled by their noses through their MSM to any war that Ziocons fancy.

In short, smart parasites feeding on dumb f*cks.

Another point is that the parasites control and profit from the fully enclosed war cycle: Media, Weapon building industry, Post-war reconstruction industry and More stolen oil, water and land for Israel.

In such system, the efficiency is an absolutely last (unprofitable) consideration.

Therefore, US winning a war against Russia? Not in the next hundred years militarily but possibly through subterfuge: assasinations and regime change.

Kiza, I agree with you on almost everything, except the zionist part. I think it’s the Anglo-Saxons that deserve most of the blame. Sure, the Jews are taking advantage of the situation, but I don’t blame them. If they are going to be used as propaganda props, why not gain something for themselves too? You don’t have to agree with me, everybody has their own opinion.

Social Security benefits are based on your lifetime contributions and what age you choose to begin taking them.

So a higher earner will get more benefits (up to the cap, around $106k if memory serves) than a modest earner--simply because he paid more into the system.

You can elect to take benefits as early as 62, or as later as 70.5.

The system was designed with psychological, political intent. The idea was that the program would be impossible for conservatives to eliminate because all wage earners would feel entitled to pensions that they themselves had paid for (though strictly speaking it is a pure tax and your taxes are paid to current retirees).

In act early economists recommend the system be funded out of general revenues and said there was no need for a payroll tax. FDR said he wanted people to take ownership in the system so no one could ever destroy the system.

It is remarkably effective. It's remarkable effective and neither Ronald Reagan nor George W Bush lasted more than a few weeks when they tried to roll back the system.

The only wins conservatives have scored against it are taxing some of the benefits (began in the 80s) and making some changes to cost-of-living inflation adjustments in the 90s.

It's called the third rail of politics here and every old person is outraged by any suggestion that benefits should be reduced.

There is however a lot of propaganda about the alleged future unaffordability of the system, and it now strikes me that there is an elite consensus in favor of modifying the system to reduce benefits.

It’s “known” that the US “social safety net” is the worst in West.

I mean, with that amount of available money provided by the State , how do we see all that visible homelessness and poverty in US?I know that drugs and alcohol, with general stupidity, can do that.

I guess my question is:A family of four, breadwinner losing his/her job (offshoring, outsourcing, downsizing) getting on that “net”, renting……would they lose their accommodation and effectively have problem with food, shelter and medical help, while on that net while finding another job?And, how long can they be on that net?I know I can read about that a lot, but condensed info from a person on the ground there would be much more helpful.

As a general rule of thumb the safety net is very weak for those in the middle class, whereas in many other Western countries there are universal social insurance systems intended to cover everyone regardless of income. Healthcare is an obvious one across the West, and much ink has been spilled about the outrageous cost of college in America. The government's safety net here is simply to allow young folks to go into unlimited state-guaranteed debt.

Something of a stealth middle class safety net is provided by the corporate sector in the form of health insurance, pensions, maternity leave, etc. This has been reduced since the 80s but still exist, and government tax policy encourages it. As an example if you leave your employer you have the right to keep your employer-sponsored health insurance through something called COBRA.

A number of programs also exist to provide tax-deferred investment accounts for various social purposes. These are available for retirement, healthcare, and higher education. The programs cost the government nothing in expenditures, but reduce tax revenue (probably by less than the public benefit however).

There is much more of a safety net for the poorer classes, but as a general rule of thumb many of these programs run through women since they're dependent on the number of children you have (and, of course, household income). If you're a single man or your baby mamma doesn't want you around anymore, tough luck.

(presstitutes and profiteers) and decent (principled and courageous) individuals?

Get real AM. Although I have read enough of your comments to know that that is not possible.

What exactly was so insulting for you — the mentioning of the principled and courageous individuals or the impossibility to use any moral standards for rationalizing the ziocons’ desire to ruin sovereign Syria?

Guess your family believes religiously in the eternal victimhood and in the right of Jewish people to demand special treatment from “others”– “because of Holocaust.” — This is over. After the fraternization of the Kagans’ clan (via Nuland-Kagan) with neo-Nazi in Ukraine and after Israeli’s support for ISIS, Jewish pretenses on superior morality (and similar fantastic inventions) have become unrealistic.

1. There is some mystery in this Putin “bragging” about new formidable weapons. This is not his style. Why now? Why do it when sanctions are in place and can be easily be tightened as the result? Looks like in order to make such a statement Putin should have intelligence information about a real threat of attack from the USA, or some large scale provocation in Syria or Ukraine. Only in this case his statement makes some sense. As a open warning: do not do it. Otherwise this is just an open invitation for the new, more destructive and expensive stage in nuclear arms race. The scenario that Russia should try to avoid.

2. Also the rule is: if your adversary is making a mistake, you should not try to stop him. If missile defense systems and aircraft carriers are useless why not to allow the USA to put another 100 billion dollars into it ? Something does not compute here. BTW both remain perfectly viable as the first strike weapons (you never know what those tubes contain and they can hold cruise missiles as well). The fact that they will perish is just part of the cost of the whole operation.

3. Russia has way too many problems, both economic and political. So each dollar put into military technology is stolen from the civilian sector and makes sanctions more effective. So succumbing to the arm race is like self-sanctions.

4. After 2012 it is clear that the way the USA will try to undermine Russia is most probably via political interference during the next election, in which there will be a power vacuum as Putin finishes his last term, and there is no Putin II. The problem of the leader succession is a well-known Achilles’ spot of Russia. In 2012 the “collective West” achieved pretty significant success in staging color revolution in Russia using pro-West (aka Zapadniki) and comprador sector in Moscow as the fifth column. The political situation in Moscow will always favor pro-European forces, as ther city has a huge concentration of employees of foreign companies, professionals and entrepreneurs who depend on the West and earn money from the West (compradors) . Efforts to put in power a classic neoliberal like Macron in France will be multiplied for elections in 2024. I do not see, why they can’t be more successful then in 2012.

5. While weakened by the recent McCarthyism campaign in the USA, Russian comprador sector and neoliberals are still a very powerful political force and control a significant part of media and oligarch money. Russian constitution was written by the USA. And scars from the economic rape of Russia in 90th still did not fully heal. In other words, pro-Western forces in Russia are powerful enough to serve as a base to stage another color revolution. Probably along with crashing oil prices before the elections again, or some other nasty trick. In this case you do not need any missiles. As long as Russia is a neoliberal country Putin and his policies remain a political anomaly. And Putin himself a maverick. There will be no another Putin, but there can well be another Gorbachov, or, worse, Yeltsin. The same is true for China, but at least china has political control of the Communist Party and state ownership of the financial sector. The latter is not true for Russia and is a huge political risk. While neoliberalism entered the stage of decline there is no viable alternatives on the horizon.

6. Loss of Ukraine was/is a huge geopolitical defeat of Putin (and Russia as a country) which can’t be compensated any bragging about new weapon systems. It was and still is a geopolitical knockdown.

7. Hopes about “some sensible conversation on the new world order may start between key geopolitical players” are naïve. The US elite is hell-bent on world superiority as this is a pre-condition of the existence of the dollar as the primary world currency. This situation will not probably change until the end of cheap oil, which might take another twenty years or more.

8. If time is working against the US, why not to sit quiet and try not to anger aging hegemon as China supposedly does (having also advantage of host of “offshored” manufacturing from the USA and having the USA as debtor).

9. The level of brain drain from Russia actually is a huge limiting factor, which makes a claim about cruising missile with a nuclear reactor as a part of propulsion engine highly suspect.

10. The network of intelligence agencies around Russia (which now include Estonia and Ukraine) probably represents much more serious threat then the “first style” capability of the USA, if such thing can eve exist.

11. “Collective West” can easily tighten sanction expending them on more technological sectors, thus damaging Russia economic growth. So bragging about new weapons is bad diplomacy when the opponent is much stronger economically and politically.

12. China has less than 300 nuclear weapons and still is regarded as a formidable nuclear power, probably spending 20 times less money in this area.

13. The claim that “The Kinzhal effectively removes any non-suicidal surface force thousands of miles away from Russia’s shores and renders its capabilities irrelevant” is highly questionable. The idea of the first strike includes the elimination of the possibility of launching most (or all) Kinzhal missiles carriers, as a necessary part required for the success of the operation. Any losses of forward deployed units are acceptable in such a huge game.

Putin should have intelligence information about a real threat of attack from the USA, or some large scale provocation in Syria or Ukraine.

I'd go for Ukraine.

Something does not compute here.

Well, "if we can't have it it's not good."
Sour grapes.

Russia has way too many problems, both economic and political. So each dollar put into military technology is stolen from the civilian sector and makes sanctions more effective. So succumbing to the arm race is like self-sanctions.

Agree.

In other words, pro-Western forces in Russia are powerful enough to serve as a base to stage another color revolution.

In this case you do not need any missiles.

While neoliberalism entered the stage of decline there is no viable alternatives on the horizon.

Agree.

Loss of Ukraine was/is a huge geopolitical defeat of Putin (and Russia as a country) which can’t be compensated any bragging about new weapon systems. It was and still is a geopolitical knockdown.

Agree.
But, perhaps that's not true. In any case, the resident "Team Russia" will now explain that. As victory, of course.

Hopes about “some sensible conversation on the new world order may start between key geopolitical players” are naïve. The US elite is hell-bent on world superiority as this is a pre-condition of the existence of the dollar as the primary world currency.

Agree.

If time is working against the US, why not to sit quiet and try not to anger aging hegemon as China supposedly does (having also advantage of host of “offshored” manufacturing from the USA and having the USA as debtor).

and

The level of brain drain from Russia actually is a huge limiting factor, which makes a claim about cruising missile with a nuclear reactor as a part of propulsion engine highly suspect.

and

“Collective West” can easily tighten sanction expending them on more technological sectors, thus damaging Russia economic growth. So bragging about new weapons is bad diplomacy when the opponent is much stronger economically and politically.

Looks like in order to make such a statement Putin should have intelligence information about a real threat of attack from the USA, or some large scale provocation in Syria or Ukraine. Only in this case his statement makes some sense. As a open warning: do not do it.

It's an interesting commentary, and I came to the same conclusion. Threats, braggadocio (We Are Empire) and general hubris are features of 21st century American foreign policy - not Russian, so I have to interpret Putin's statement as reactive. There is something out there that Putin is aware of, and he's saying "Don't do It".

America is incapable of viewing itself through the eyes of others, and has the kind of blind arrogance that I would best compare to late 19th and early 20th Century German militarism - the deeply embedded German worldview (long before Hitler) of superiority, destiny, and the corresponding natural right to Empire. Hitler was only the last in a long line of German exponents of this view when he said "According to the laws of nature, the soil belongs to he who conquers it. The fact of having children who want to live, the fact that our people is bursting out of its cramped frontiers - these justify all of our claims to the Eastern spaces."

It took two World Wars, and Russian troops in Berlin, to rid the world of this cancer - and the same dynamic is now at work again. The crazed Imperialist is the USA (or at least its Zio-Glob leadership), but with the difference that a technological WW3 will be over in a matter of days if not hours.

You make some interesting observations and your comment is thought-provoking...

However...I think the intent of the article was to explore some of the
technical issues of what we saw on March 1...not so much the political dimension...and certainly your approach is to try to get an overall...wide angle picture that gets every possible Russia issue into the frame...

...which by necessity means you give up some resolution...or granularity if y0u will...compared to a more tightly focused article...

You start with an initial premise of why announce these weapons now...and question the wisdom...the simple answer may be technical related...these weapons may be already mature technically and now is the time to show them...?

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar...

A couple more points...you mention sanctions quite a bit...but we have seen that Russia is able to carry on just fine...sanctions or not...

The key indicator there is that sanctions are having a much bigger blowback on the US itself...ie the US is losing Europe...

Germany has been quite vocal about US going a step too far in trying to dictate energy policy...which is key to German industrial export economy...and besides they may finally be finding their sea legs after years of subservience to an increasingly unhinged country that is heading for the cliff...

The Germans are going to get Nordstream 2...because they want it...it is actually more important to Germany than to Russia...Russia has been supplying energy to Europe for many decades going back to Soviet times...but is just now starting to feed the biggest energy consumer in the world...China...

Other, smaller EU countries notably Italy...have become quite vocal about Russia sanctions hurting them...we saw just now an election in Italy where the ruling claque were turfed...

So it seems that the days of US dictating the politics to its European vassals may be over...the kind of friction they are making with sanctions and their increasing hysteria is only hastening this process of vassals breaking off...

The other issue is Ukraine...you bring to this the the typical US perspective of 'losing' a country...this again goes back to the vassal game...

The US gained all of Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union...but did Russia lose anything...sensible people will say the lost they burden of empire...long after it had ceased being profitable...as with the British previously...

Ukraine is historically something of an artificial country...the original Kievan Rus [Rurivik dynasty] was the original Russia...it fell apart after the Mongol invasions...but the Russian and Ukrainian language and people are mostly indistinguishable...other than the Galician Catholic minority...

For several hundred years the peoples of the Ukraine [ie even then it was more than a single national people] were under rule by the Poles and Lithuania...while the new Russian empire based in Moscow gained strength and eventually took over 300 years ago...

There are and have always been Ukrainian nationalists that do not like Russia...but they are in the minority...the best way to think of Ukraine is similar to Scotland...even the Irish are more distant from the English than Ukrainians from Russians...

Politically the situation we see in Ukraine is that the ordinary people don't really care about the politics...they are genuinely concerned about bread and butter...it is quite sad actually that the US is treating the Ukraine as a pawn...and a quite cheap one at that...in its game with Russia...

I don't believe the Russians look at the situation that way...there is real fraternity among many Russians and Ukrainians that goes to a fundamental level...again similar to Scotland where the country is divided on the issue of the English...

So unless the EU and US are prepared to do a full Marshall plan to drag Ukraine into a reasonable living standard...then this 'win' will turn out to be something of a chimera...

Heck the polls even in eastern Europe are trending against the post Cold War direction...with about half the people now questioning if the new boss is really better than the old boss...

And finally if you are going to do a wide angle shot like this...then get the crazy cousin into the picture also...ie the US and its failing Ponzi economy...that is bound to collapse just on the principles of mathematics...

China and Russia are working to bury the source of all US strength...the petrodollar...this is literally kryptonite...the US is quite simply toast once the petrodollar sinks...

China is the world's biggest economy and biggest energy buyer...Russia is the world's biggest energy seller...other nations too that are not so strong and have felt the body blows of US economic warfare...such as Iran, Venezuela and other will gladly join in...

It's starting to feel like US has used up all its chips and all its markers...

The entire developing world wants real prosperity not economic colonialism and corporate plunder...

These are some large and powerful currents that have to be taken into account...if one is going to take a wide angle shot of geopolitics...

Looks like in order to make such a statement Putin should have intelligence information about a real threat of attack from the USA, or some large scale provocation in Syria or Ukraine. Only in this case his statement makes some sense. As a open warning: do not do it.

Look at the keyword, allies. Putin emphasized, if Russia or its allies are attacked..... so its Syria potential hyper escalation, Ukraine brewing collision with new lethal weapons, to some lesser extent, Iran & Venezuela with Russia high investment.

12. China has less than 300 nuclear weapons and still is regarded as a formidable nuclear power, probably spending 20 times less money in this area.

China might have to do something similar to Putin later just to ensure US won't took the wrong calculated risk to do something stupid. However China style is always keep secretive of its killer weapon that worry US most. Its said in every Wargaming, whenever Red team losing to Blue, they launch China Murderer Mace(Trump card), then everything end in Red favour.

In another topic, some said China has est 400 nukes, with only 20~40 that can reach US which might tempted US to believe it could survive an exchange. So a large upgrade is necessary. Anyone got better idea?

In last year during South China Seas confrontation, China actually sent out all its navy to conduct live exercise till eve of fake Hague court judgement, with nuclear subs in high profile despatched to US Guam & Indian ocean bases(where their nuclear bombers station). Two strike groups that with its Adm Harry threaten war start tonight, were reportedly hiding in East Philippine Seas to get out of H6k bomber missiles(aircraft carrier killer) range.

WH panick of real war escalation, Obama sent its top general to China, with NSA advisor Rice also visited Xi to resolve. This shows US isn't ready for a military clash with nuke China, with much lesser warheads than Russia.

You raise many interesting points that lack details that would establish them as well-founded. This is what weakens your many cases. I could contest many of them as written, but would rather see the basis for your assertions.

This weakness reduces your analysis to a species of linearity that lacks irony and paradox.
E.g., I suggest the sanctions imposed on Russia accelerated its autarchic development. Another instance: prior to the "loss of Ukraine" the Russians sourced military necessities such as gas turbines from the Ukraine, but this may well be on the way to being solved:

Serial production of Russian engines for ships of the Russian Navy will begin in 2018

Подробнее на ТАСС:
http://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/4209929

I suggest a more basic issue that you didn't address is that the Russians have overcome their trust of western adversaries and have come to realize Russia needs to come to a gun fight with a gun. Putin suggested this was on his agenda back in 2007 at Munich:

Speech and the Following Discussion at the Munich Conference on Security Policy

February 10, 2007

We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state’s legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?

In international relations we increasingly see the desire to resolve a given question according to so-called issues of political expediency, based on the current political climate.

And of course this is extremely dangerous. It results in the fact that no one feels safe. I want to emphasise this – no one feels safe! Because no one can feel that international law is like a stone wall that will protect them. Of course such a policy stimulates an arms race.
. . .

Plans to expand certain elements of the anti-missile defence system to Europe cannot help but disturb us. Who needs the next step of what would be, in this case, an inevitable arms race? I deeply doubt that Europeans themselves do.
. . .

I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernisation of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them. But I will allow myself to remind this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: “the fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee”. Where are these guarantees?

In answer to questions:

Regarding our perception of NATO’s eastern expansion, I already mentioned the guarantees that were made and that are not being observed today. Do you happen to think that this is normal practice in international affairs? But all right, forget it. Forget these guarantees. With respect to democracy and NATO expansion. NATO is not a universal organisation, as opposed to the UN. It is first and foremost a military and political alliance, military and political! Well, ensuring one’s own security is the right of any sovereign state. We are not arguing against this. Of course we are not objecting to this. But why is it necessary to put military infrastructure on our borders during this expansion?
. . .

Question: “The USA are not developing strategic weapons but Russia is. Will Russia use force in the future if it is not sanctioned by the UN? Russia is developing a system of strategic weapons”.

Fine question, excellent! I am very grateful to you for this question. It will give me the opportunity to talk about the essence of what is happening. . . . Yes, the United States is ostensibly not developing an offensive weapon. In any case, the public does not know about this. Even though they are certainly developing them. But we aren’t even going to ask about this now. We know that these developments are proceeding. But we pretend that we don’t know, so we say that they aren’t developing new weapons. But what do we know? That the United States is actively developing and already strengthening an anti-missile defence system. Today this system is ineffective but we do not know exactly whether it will one day be effective. But in theory it is being created for that purpose. So hypothetically we recognise that when this moment arrives, the possible threat from our nuclear forces will be completely neutralised.
. . .

And of course we should react to this. How? Either the same as you and therefore by building a multi-billion dollar anti-missile system or, in view of our present economic and financial possibilities, by developing an asymmetrical answer. So that everybody can understand that the anti-missile defence system is useless against Russia because we have certain weapons that easily overcome it. And we are proceeding in this direction. It is cheaper for us. And this is in no way directed against the United States themselves.

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034

That is now 11 years ago. If you accept Martyanov's thesis, and that Russia made clear that it was aware of the trends as of 2007 and was taking steps to address what it thought was happening, then how do you (if you do) explain Russia's ability to accomplish what it has achieved today in the face of the arguments you mooted?

'...Mach 2.8 in level flight will outrun Mach 3.5 horizontally at any angle over 18 degrees...'

Uh...no...

This is a simple trig vector problem...ie the horizontal speed of the missile in a climb angle of 18 degrees will be 95 percent of its actual speed...

Ie cos(18) = 0.951...

The MiG top speed of M 2.8 is 0.8 [80 percent] of the pursuing missile speed of 3.5...hence the airplane could only outpace the missile if the missile angle is above 36 percent...twice what you stated...

As to the missile climb speed...again your math is off...at that 18 degree angle it will be the sine of the forward speed that will give us the climb...sin(18) = 0.3

which means the missile actual climb rate is still over M1...although it would not be expressed in terms of Mach number anyway...

In order to climb at a rate of M0.7 the missile would have to be shot at a 45 degree angle...

Admittedly the SM6 speed is rather slow at M3.5...about half that of the S300/400 rockets which are about 2 km/s...even the old S200 is actually a speed demon at 2.5 km/s...which is over M7...

But still...

'...So we’re looking at perhaps 15 minutes to reaching the maximum altitude of the MiG 31...'

Well...that's simply ridiculous...

Climbing straight up it would take 18.4 seconds for a M3.5 rocket to reach 20,600 m...the MiG's service ceiling...

Now it would take a few additional seconds for the rocket to accelerate once it pops out of the tube and its motor lights up...not more than 10 seconds or so...considering its small cross-section area and resulting low drag...combined with the high thrust...

So call it 30 seconds...if fired at an intercept angle of 45 degrees...the rocket would take 42 seconds to reach that height...including the 10 second acceleration to top speed of M3.5

At that point the rocket would be 30 km out and 20 km high...

If the radar lock was made before launch and the radar warning receiver on the MiG picked it up instantly...it means he has 30 seconds to make a turn that will break radar lock...

Very doubtful he is going to make that turn tight enough to shake the missile...

At M2.8 and 20 km altitude his speed is 827 m/s...so at maximum 5 g turn his minimum turn radius is going to be 14.25 km...

Turn radius is given by the equation...

https://s14.postimg.org/bsbqyz5lt/turn_radius.jpg

Like I said...first he has to turn...but that 14 km turn radius means flying an arc that is 45 km long...ie 14 x pi = ~45...

At his speed of 827 m/s that's going to take him 54 seconds to make that U-turn...

Now...if he reacted to his radar warning receiver instantly and started the turn...he might have a chance to outrun the shot by the time the admittedly slow missile gets there...

we said 45 seconds...by which time it might be too late...

It would be a game of chicken that I don't anyone would want to play...sorry...

Actually made a slight booboo there myself…

I had said…

‘…In order to climb at a rate of M0.7 the missile would have to be shot at a 45 degree angle…’

That’s not correct…for some reason I was using tangent there instead of sine…

the rocket launch angle would need to get smaller to decrease the climb rate…obviously…not bigger…a rocket flight angle of 12 degrees [to the horizontal] would give an upward component of 0.2… ie sin(12) = 0.2

multiply that my our forward speed of M3.5 and we get an up component of M0.7…

The rest of the calcs look correct…

Also a note that in the formula for turn radius given…the g is for the acceleration of gravity which is 9.8 m/s^2…and the n is for the load factor of 5…that is the number of g’s the aircraft is pulling in the bank…

Bottom line is that the math analysis is sound…the pilot flying toward the SAM would have to turn around first if he wants to outrun the shot…which would take time…by which time that missile would have a good chance of getting there…

Depending on the actual circumstances and hence geometry of the engagement…

Obviously, beyond the greed focused MIC there is a much more serious implication of US last experiencing, but only a medium intensity, war in its Civil War so long ago. The much more serious implication is that it is dishing out war mush more readily than any other nation on the planet. The reason that Ziocon parasites have found such a fertile ground in the US is almost like an isolated island, whose people consider war to be entertainment (shock & awe), have never had any serious family or home losses from it and are dumb and uneducated enough to be pulled by their noses through their MSM to any war that Ziocons fancy.

In short, smart parasites feeding on dumb f*cks.

Another point is that the parasites control and profit from the fully enclosed war cycle:
Media,
Weapon building industry,
Post-war reconstruction industry and
More stolen oil, water and land for Israel.

In such system, the efficiency is an absolutely last (unprofitable) consideration.

Therefore, US winning a war against Russia? Not in the next hundred years militarily but possibly through subterfuge: assasinations and regime change.

Kiza, I agree with you on almost everything, except the zionist part. I think it’s the Anglo-Saxons that deserve most of the blame. Sure, the Jews are taking advantage of the situation, but I don’t blame them. If they are going to be used as propaganda props, why not gain something for themselves too? You don’t have to agree with me, everybody has their own opinion.

(presstitutes and profiteers) and decent (principled and courageous) individuals?

Get real AM. Although I have read enough of your comments to know that that is not possible.

Just a pre-empt, tiring if you say you don’t understand Ukraine, etc. then twenty comments; dem Jews.

No rain, too much rain, dem Jews.

Well, you did utter the trigger word.

Guess your family believes religiously in the eternal victimhood and in the right of Jewish people to demand special treatment from “others”– “because of Holocaust.” — This is over. After the fraternization of the Kagans’ clan (via Nuland-Kagan) with neo-Nazi in Ukraine and after Israeli’s support for ISIS, Jewish pretenses on superior morality (and similar fantastic inventions) have become unrealistic.

1. There is some mystery in this Putin "bragging" about new formidable weapons. This is not his style. Why now? Why do it when sanctions are in place and can be easily be tightened as the result? Looks like in order to make such a statement Putin should have intelligence information about a real threat of attack from the USA, or some large scale provocation in Syria or Ukraine. Only in this case his statement makes some sense. As a open warning: do not do it. Otherwise this is just an open invitation for the new, more destructive and expensive stage in nuclear arms race. The scenario that Russia should try to avoid.

2. Also the rule is: if your adversary is making a mistake, you should not try to stop him. If missile defense systems and aircraft carriers are useless why not to allow the USA to put another 100 billion dollars into it ? Something does not compute here. BTW both remain perfectly viable as the first strike weapons (you never know what those tubes contain and they can hold cruise missiles as well). The fact that they will perish is just part of the cost of the whole operation.

3. Russia has way too many problems, both economic and political. So each dollar put into military technology is stolen from the civilian sector and makes sanctions more effective. So succumbing to the arm race is like self-sanctions.

4. After 2012 it is clear that the way the USA will try to undermine Russia is most probably via political interference during the next election, in which there will be a power vacuum as Putin finishes his last term, and there is no Putin II. The problem of the leader succession is a well-known Achilles' spot of Russia. In 2012 the "collective West" achieved pretty significant success in staging color revolution in Russia using pro-West (aka Zapadniki) and comprador sector in Moscow as the fifth column. The political situation in Moscow will always favor pro-European forces, as ther city has a huge concentration of employees of foreign companies, professionals and entrepreneurs who depend on the West and earn money from the West (compradors) . Efforts to put in power a classic neoliberal like Macron in France will be multiplied for elections in 2024. I do not see, why they can't be more successful then in 2012.

5. While weakened by the recent McCarthyism campaign in the USA, Russian comprador sector and neoliberals are still a very powerful political force and control a significant part of media and oligarch money. Russian constitution was written by the USA. And scars from the economic rape of Russia in 90th still did not fully heal. In other words, pro-Western forces in Russia are powerful enough to serve as a base to stage another color revolution. Probably along with crashing oil prices before the elections again, or some other nasty trick. In this case you do not need any missiles. As long as Russia is a neoliberal country Putin and his policies remain a political anomaly. And Putin himself a maverick. There will be no another Putin, but there can well be another Gorbachov, or, worse, Yeltsin. The same is true for China, but at least china has political control of the Communist Party and state ownership of the financial sector. The latter is not true for Russia and is a huge political risk. While neoliberalism entered the stage of decline there is no viable alternatives on the horizon.

6. Loss of Ukraine was/is a huge geopolitical defeat of Putin (and Russia as a country) which can't be compensated any bragging about new weapon systems. It was and still is a geopolitical knockdown.

7. Hopes about "some sensible conversation on the new world order may start between key geopolitical players" are naïve. The US elite is hell-bent on world superiority as this is a pre-condition of the existence of the dollar as the primary world currency. This situation will not probably change until the end of cheap oil, which might take another twenty years or more.

8. If time is working against the US, why not to sit quiet and try not to anger aging hegemon as China supposedly does (having also advantage of host of "offshored" manufacturing from the USA and having the USA as debtor).

9. The level of brain drain from Russia actually is a huge limiting factor, which makes a claim about cruising missile with a nuclear reactor as a part of propulsion engine highly suspect.

10. The network of intelligence agencies around Russia (which now include Estonia and Ukraine) probably represents much more serious threat then the "first style" capability of the USA, if such thing can eve exist.

11. "Collective West" can easily tighten sanction expending them on more technological sectors, thus damaging Russia economic growth. So bragging about new weapons is bad diplomacy when the opponent is much stronger economically and politically.

12. China has less than 300 nuclear weapons and still is regarded as a formidable nuclear power, probably spending 20 times less money in this area.

13. The claim that "The Kinzhal effectively removes any non-suicidal surface force thousands of miles away from Russia’s shores and renders its capabilities irrelevant" is highly questionable. The idea of the first strike includes the elimination of the possibility of launching most (or all) Kinzhal missiles carriers, as a necessary part required for the success of the operation. Any losses of forward deployed units are acceptable in such a huge game.

Putin should have intelligence information about a real threat of attack from the USA, or some large scale provocation in Syria or Ukraine.

I’d go for Ukraine.

Something does not compute here.

Well, “if we can’t have it it’s not good.” Sour grapes.

Russia has way too many problems, both economic and political. So each dollar put into military technology is stolen from the civilian sector and makes sanctions more effective. So succumbing to the arm race is like self-sanctions.

Agree.

In other words, pro-Western forces in Russia are powerful enough to serve as a base to stage another color revolution.

In this case you do not need any missiles.

While neoliberalism entered the stage of decline there is no viable alternatives on the horizon.

Agree.

Loss of Ukraine was/is a huge geopolitical defeat of Putin (and Russia as a country) which can’t be compensated any bragging about new weapon systems. It was and still is a geopolitical knockdown.

Agree. But, perhaps that’s not true. In any case, the resident “Team Russia” will now explain that. As victory, of course.

Hopes about “some sensible conversation on the new world order may start between key geopolitical players” are naïve. The US elite is hell-bent on world superiority as this is a pre-condition of the existence of the dollar as the primary world currency.

Agree.

If time is working against the US, why not to sit quiet and try not to anger aging hegemon as China supposedly does (having also advantage of host of “offshored” manufacturing from the USA and having the USA as debtor).

and

The level of brain drain from Russia actually is a huge limiting factor, which makes a claim about cruising missile with a nuclear reactor as a part of propulsion engine highly suspect.

and

“Collective West” can easily tighten sanction expending them on more technological sectors, thus damaging Russia economic growth. So bragging about new weapons is bad diplomacy when the opponent is much stronger economically and politically.

I've been reading your site for a long time. Some points on your response to Martyanov:

The USA should return to the method used before the 1980s where government organizations developed weapons and then contracted production to the private sector. Most of these military/government organizations still exist, but have been sidelined, so crap is developed by a free market profit seeking monopoly, like the F-35.

Is this really accurate? There was plenty of development by commercial organizations prior to the 1980s, and military arsenals have their own failure records. Examples of commercial successes in the past:

*Most aircraft produced until the F-111 (which ultimately matured into a fine aircraftt), and then afterwards the entire teen series of fighters as well as the A-10
*The original AR-15, which the army chose to screw up royally

Then we have examples of arsenal and lab failures such as:

*Refusing the .276 round for the M1 Garand and later insisting on the 7.62 NATO in contravention of the superior British alternative
*The aforementioned M16 screwup
*BuOrd's disgraceful WW2 torpedo foulup

Now one thing that has changed substantially is that most ship classes used to be developed by the Navy itself and its government yards, but now they're developed by contractors (badly, as shown by the Gerald Ford class, the Zumwalt class, and the LCS joke). But the old navy did solicit commercial designs as well.

Some more competition is needed. This can come from renewed development by arsenals, but also we need trust busting in the defense industry.

Program management is obviously a huge disaster, but who knows why? Cost-plus contracts? Officers and politicians effectively playing for the contractors rather than the country? Ignorance, as Martyanov suggested?

2. The use of small lasers to blind combatants. The US Marine Corps recently added expensive “dazzlers” to its machine guns that will prove more effective than the gun itself. (pictured)

Skeptical. Against trained infantry gunfire is largely suppressive. The enemy is destroyed by indirect fires and making use of microterrain to maneuver.

That said adds another useful weapon for relatively little weight, and depending on the power of the laser and the weather that day it could outperform gunfire at longer ranges.

3. The inability to replace munitions stocks in a timely manner. Most nations have limited stockpiles and the complexity of some make rapid production impossible. If the USA becomes involved in a major war that lasts longer than a month, it will have to pause for several months until new munitions are produced and delivered.

This was an issue even in the Cold War (NATO officially planned on 30 days warstocks, but based on the experience of the Yom Kippur war it probably had one-two weeks). It was also an issue for all combatants in the early stages of both world wars.

It seems difficult to plan for this, especially as politicians are likely to balk at huge warstocks which must be frequently replaced or refurbished.

More important may be simply maintaining a strong industrial base--woops.

5. The millions of civilian vehicles on the world’s roads. It is impossible to tell if they are friend or foe unless inspected up close. Soldiers can use this to their advantage, which makes urban operations very dangerous for both civilians and soldiers.

This, incidentally, also makes the interdiction mission for airpower that was so successful in the summer of 1944 effectively useless against any industrialized opponent.

In the summer of 1944 we had 11,000 fighters (as well as medium bombers, unsure how many) in Western Europe facing a few thousand German trucks and a small number of rail lines.

In a modern conflict we'd have a few hundred fighters and attack aircraft against
millions of trucks. Modern aircraft can attack more targets successfully, but the disparity is too huge to overcome.

9. Modern body armor has made 5.56mm and even 7.62mm bullets less lethal.

This is solvable problem in my view. Increase the sectional density and length of the bullet, and increase muzzle velocity.

Explosive and raufoss rounds might work as well, though the small size of bullets makes me skeptical.

Precision-guided glide weapons of relatively small size (e.g. 40mm in diameter) are another option.

You also don't need to kill an opponent to achieve mission kill, and even someone in hard-kill body armor will be suppressed by gunfire which then allows for attack by indirect fires.

10. Fleets of surface ships cannot hide for long in big oceans.

Embarrassingly the USN's official response to the Chinese demonstration of an antiship ballistic missile was that battlegroups would be hard to find. Sure.

Even if that were true, to attack the enemy on land the battlegroups must get close to shore, where they are easily found and attacked.

The USN basically stopped even bothering to defend its surface fleet against serious opponents after the cancellation of the F-111B.

The F-111B was a logical response to the threat of Soviet naval aviation. With a combat range of over 2,000 nautical miles on internal fuel, it could credibly keep Soviet maritime patrol bombers out of launch range for their anti-ship missiles (which were to be armed with tactical nuclear warheads).

The replacement F-14 only had a range of about 500 nautical miles. While a fine aircraft in many respect, it was useless in its planned role of fleet defense.

Advanced long-range SAMs could do the job instead of long-range interceptors, but the US lags Russia badly here and has no long-range SAMs of any kind.

This leaves missile defense and CIWS (where the US also lags many foreign nations, even small European ones!) to protect the fleet.

Good luck with that.

Serious things that might defend the fleet:

*Long-range interceptors
*Long-range SAMs (USN equivalent of S-300/400/500 family)
*High energy microwaves (with enough energy a bubble field could destroy missile electronics)
*Upgraded and more numerous CIWS, ideally with lasers and rail guns if they ever get those to work
*Actually armoring ships

But even if all of these expensive technologies work as intended, they'll still vulnerable to being overwhelmed by salvos as well as nuclear warheads.

Probably we should accept that Karl Doenitz was right about the future of naval warfare--nothing on the surface.

The navy should instead be made up mostly of submarines and long range aircraft. Surface forces would be limited to mine sweepers, ASW corvettes, and green/brown water small boats (like the LCS except not expensive and trash).

The entire amphibious assault concept is ridiculous as well. Amphibious assaults were hard enough to pull off in WW2 against inferior opponents hard pressed on other fronts.

Against a prepared opponent with modern technology they will fail spectacularly.

And against an UNPREPARED opponent no specialized and expensive amphibious forces are not needed. They can be quickly conducted using improvised equipment as the Germans did in 1917 and again in 1940.

Of course government arsenals/depots/yards had losers, but they were an honest try. There is something wrong when a profit-seeking organization earns more when their products are flawed and must be fixed, and earns more profits when products are costly to maintain, all the while legally bribing congressmen with “contributions” and Generals and Admirals with obvious kickbacks the same month they “retire”.

The new $14 billion USS Ford aircraft carrier has a launch system that cannot be fixed because it never worked. It remains an experimental system that after 20 years of development is not ready for use, and may never be. Replacing it with a proven steam system will cost over $5 billion.

The idea that items like aircraft carriers are somehow cheaper and better when produced by a monopoly is insane. Our Pentagon gets ten times more to spend than Russia each year. The fact that Russia can produce anything equal to the USA shows there are major problems.

As I write in my book, aircraft carriers and amphibious ships have a key role in power projection. However, if a major war occurs they must hide far away until enemy subs, missile bases, and bombers are destroyed, which may take months if not years. Then they can come out of hiding to conquer.

However, if a major war occurs they must hide far away until enemy subs, missile bases, and bombers are destroyed, which may take months if not years. Then they can come out of hiding to conquer.

I had a good laugh, this is what happens when so many people play armchair warriors. Where would you hide an aircraft carrier Carlton, under your mattress? This is not the Roosevelt’s WW2 to evacuate the carriers and leave the smaller ships to be sunk.

The new $14 billion USS Ford aircraft carrier has a launch system that cannot be fixed because it never worked. It remains an experimental system that after 20 years of development is not ready for use, and may never be. Replacing it with a proven steam system will cost over $5 billion.

Construction of the third carrier is expected to start next year and will use electromagnetic launch rather than steam-powered catapults. The carrier is expected to have 80,000 ton displacement which would put it in the super carrier class.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/11/china-starting-construction-of-superaircarrier-with-electromagnetic-launch-but-using-older-heavier-fighter-jets.html/amp

China was confident about its EMALS technology now that it was able to produce its own insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) chips, a key component of the high-efficiency electric energy conversion systems used in variable-speed drives, trains, electric and hybrid electric vehicles, power grids and renewable energy plants.

I would note that there is a lot of shock and anger in the US media...not only the aspect of 'Russian Aggression'...but also the idea that the Russians have made a major
technology leapfrog over the US...

This is because for decades the US media and govt have loudly touted US and Western technology as far superior to that of the Soviet Union and Russia...

As with any propaganda theme of the West...this canard was eagerly accepted by all...the media...the public...the so-called 'experts' etc...

In a culture and at a historical time where
'technology' is fascinating to people...[despite the fact that they do not understand even the
basic physical and technical side of it]... it is seen as a source of national power...

We have arrived at this point in time where it's all about the technology...and the corollary...

'...Our technology is the best in the world...especially our military technology...'

Of course...those who are technically literate and do in fact understand from a professional perspective the aerospace technology in particular...and will have likely been exposed to Russian and Soviet technical circles [such is the nature of science...it is and has always been an interactive, multinational field...]

...So for those people the Putin announcement of March 1, really does not come as a big surprise at all...many would who are familiar with the
vast scientific and technical potential of this nation...are not shocked to see some very significant technical breakthroughs...

Still, speaking as one such individual, who has long taken the view that the Russians have the people and institutional tradition to pull of some amazing technological advances in aerospace, in particular...the magnitude of the leap described in the Putin address is still difficult to process...

If these technologies are as
mature as Putin has implied...then this is
massive news in the aerospace domain...

I will only highlight
one of the new weapons systems here...the Kinzhal air-launched, hypersonic anti-ship missile...

What we know so far...it is an air-launched, maneuvering missile with an unprecedented range of 2,000 km [1,080 nautical miles]...and an unprecedented speed of Mach 10...[7,600 mph at sea level]...

If true...this is an astounding leap in cruise missile technology...ie if we consider here that
'cruise' means a
maneuverable missile as opposed to one that flies on a simple ballistic trajectory like any piece of artillery...

Let us compare to what is out there now...the
Kh22 anti-ship missile was put into service in 1962...56 years ago...

The missile weighs 5,800 kg and has a range of 600 km [324 nm]...with a maximum speed of M4.6 [3,500 mph]...

This was the original Soviet carrier-killer...there is nothing remotely similar in the West...the updated version that entered service in 2016...
the Kh32 boasts an increased range of 1,000 km [540 nm]...and a slight increase in speed to M5...

So clearly the groundwork for a
'super-sized' version of this kind of anti-ship missile has been in place for a long time...

Both the Kh models are powered by liquid fuel rocket engines and employ a flight trajectory where the missile first climbs to a high altitude...27 km [90,000 ft] for the KH22...and 40 km [130,000 ft] for the Kh32...

...then either dives at the target to achieve its maximum M4.6 speed [M5 for Kh32]...
maneuvering all the way to the target to make it harder to knock out with air defenses...

...or, alternately, making a shallow dive at M3.5 and then approaches the target flying close to the water surface at a height of 500 ft...

We see one Kh under the starboard wing and another in a conformal [ie half-buried] position under the fuselage...the port wing would carry a third Kh...

The below graphic shows the two flight profiles of the Kh...

http://ausairpower.net/XIMG/000-Kh-22-Backfire-C-CONOPS-1.png

And here we see a 'friendly' cockpit tour of the Tu22M by USN Admiral Charles R. Larson...Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet...during the Cold War...

http://ausairpower.net/V-MF/Backfire-Cockpit-DN-SC-91-02246-1S.jpg

So we see that the new Kinzhal missile claims
twice the range and twice the speed of the existing Kh32...

We know nothing about the propulsion system of this missile nor its flight characteristics...ie how high does it go...and how does it make its final approach to the target...?

More on that in a bit...but first let's look at the overall picture...

The primary target for this missile would
not be USN aircraft carriers but Aegis missile cruisers and destroyers carrying the SM3 ballistic missile defense interceptors [BMD]...as Andrei has pointed out...

The retaliatory strike by Russia would be
neutralized by the US missile defense...relying largely on the Aegis SM3 interceptor...which can be located on ships close to Russia's coast...[as well as the Aegis Ashore installations in Eastern Europe]...

This kind of first-strike has been openly discussed in US policy circles for more than a decade...

'...According to our model, such a simplified surprise attack would have a good chance of destroying every Russian bomber base, submarine, and ICBM...'

'...On March 1, the
Strategic Studies Quarterly, a journal published by the U.S. Air Force’s Air University, published an article admitting what...the Russians, have long been warning against: that U.S. strategic policy under the Obama Administration is seeking to create the capability to launch a
first strike against Russia and/or China,
without fear of nuclear retaliation..'

Clearly Putin's announcement of these new weapons is to bring a
reality check to such unhinged individuals...who may in fact represent the consensus in Washington to this day...

The threat as outlined in the above scenario is very real...the Trident 2 can cover 1,850 km [1,000 nm] in just 12.5 minutes...

That's with what is called a minimum energy trajectory or MET...which is the trajectory angle for maximum range for a given amount of rocket energy...

The US has been exploring depressed trajectory [DT] ICBM flights which would reduce the 1,850 km flight time to just
7.2 minutes...

The Trident 2 ICBM has a much greater maximum range [up to 10,000 km] but the obvious advantage is to get as close as possible before launching...it is estimated that a US sub several hundred km offshore in international waters could hit the most inland Russian missile silos and bomber bases with a maximum range of about
3,000 km...

A 3,000 km DT launch would have a
flight time of only 10 minutes...Women Cole Weave Black Sandal Haan Genevieve White DressIt is not clear whether the US has
achieved the depressed trajectory capability, as this type of flight path results in increased heat loading [due to atmospheric friction]...and also reduced accuracy...due to unpredictable atmospheric effects like air density and winds aloft...

It is also unclear
just how well the SM3 interceptor actually works...prominent critics like MIT's Prof. Ted Postol, a weapons expert and former science adviser to the pentagon...have pointed out that the SM3 flight test
'success' has been overstated and doubts that the system is actually capable of bringing down an enemy missile in an actual combat scenario...

We also note that out of the 33 Aegis BMD equipped warships...17 are in the Pacific Fleet [plus five more such Japanese navy ships...yet the US has not attempted to shoot down a North Korean missile...many of which have overflown Japan...

However...whatever the failings of the current system may or may not be...the rational assumption is that
sooner or later this capability will in fact be functional...the same assumption can be made for the depressed trajectory launch of Trident 2 submarine ICBMs...

Here is how the Aegis SM3 is supposed to work...

https://s20.postimg.org/h1h93lbwt/blockiia-footprint5.png

We note here that the system is designed to intercept target ballistic missiles in two stages of their flight...right after the boost phase when the rocket burns out and the missile is
ascending in space...and secondly...during the
descent portion of the midcourse trajectory...

Clearly...the idea of placing this system on warships and in Eastern Europe is to position them for an
'ascent' stage intercept...as opposed to descent...where they would ideally be positioned near the targets being defended...ie the US...

So this is the big picture view of why the Kinzhal is necessary to Russia's defense...it is designed to keep those Aegis BMD warships at bay...

With a range of 2,000 km the Aegis warships that may be positioned off Russia's huge coastline will effectively be neutralized...in the event of a conflict or even crisis situation...those ships would have to back off to a safe distance, out of reach of Kinzhal, and thereby putting the SM3 out of range for a possible intercept...

Now the big question...is the Kinzhal technology real...is it actually in deployment as Putin stated...?

Well...Putin is not known for bluffing...and it would be counterproductive to do so in this case...

But looking at the technical side...we see that an enormous leap is required here from the Kh32 to the Kinzhal...

Andrei speculates that the missile technology may be based on the ground-launched Iskander missile...
from what we know about this missile it is capable of maneuvering both in the boost phase and the presumably the terminal phase as well...

'...The missile is
controlled during the whole flight with gas-dynamic and aerodynamic control surfaces. It uses small fins to reduce its radar signature...

...It is rumored that during flight it can
maneuver at different altitudes and trajectories and can turn at up to 20 to 30 G to evade anti-ballistic missiles...'

The maximum speed is M6 to M7 and the missile does not leave the atmosphere...reaching a maximum height of 50 km [164,000 ft]...

The range is 500 km...although this limitation may be self-imposed due to the IMF treaty...the Iskander is said to be very accurate with a circular error probable of just 5 to 7 meters...and some sources in the West say as low as 2 meters...

The missile weight is 3,800 kg...which is two tons less than the Kh with a similar range...but ground-launched...an air launch at high speed and altitude would extend the same missile's range considerably...

So we see that the basic pieces are indeed there to put together something like the Kinzhal...an Iskander derivative with a bigger, more powerful rocket motor [solid fuel] to reach a higher speed of M10...

Air launched form the unique
MiG31 interceptor which is the
only combat aircraft in existence designed to fly its entire mission at supersonic speeds...maximum speed is M2.8 and
supersonic cruise is M2.4...

Its service ceiling is 20 km [66,000 ft] so an air-launch of an Iskander type missile will get the rocket to nearly half its altitude and one quarter its speed...the fuel energy saved by air launch means the rocket can fly longer and faster...

The big challenge is going to be aerodynamic skin heating due to the very high speeds coming down into the thick air at sea level...this is a materials science challenge that is similar to spacecraft atmospheric re-entry temperatures...on the order of possibly 2,000 C...

Putting the pieces together...the conclusion seems to point in the direction that Putin is not bluffing about the Kinzhal...this technology leap may in fact be very
real...and going into service as we speak...

Also notable is the historical parallel...the Kh22 antiship missile and Tu22 aircraft were conceived in the 1950s as an
asymmetrical response to USN aircraft carriers...and judging by the look on that admiral's face while sitting in the Tu22 driver's seat...there is much reason to believe that it would have
worked as advertised...

The Kinzhal is now the asymmetrical and cost-effective response to an even bigger and more threatening challenge...the US long march to an effective ballistic missile defense encirclement of Russia that could someday make a US nuclear first strike possible and survivable...

Here we see another graphic [I had already posted a similar one previously] that shows how the ballistic missile flight trajectory works...

Here we see that the midcourse phase takes place outside the atmosphere and consists of the ascent...apogee...and descent portions of the flight...

The DPRK launched two intermediate range ballistic missiles last year that overflew the Japanese island of Hokkaido...

One in
August that flew for a total distance of 2,700 km and reached an apogee of 550 km...

And another in September that flew for 3,700 km and reached an apogee of 770 km...

Now a lot of so-called 'experts' said that was too high for the SM3 to reach...and that is correct if you are only going to intercept the missile at its exact midpoint...the apogee...

Otherwise it is quite clear that there are many opportunities for intercept as the missile is
ascending...and descending...

I have highlighted the ascending part of the midcourse phase because of the geography involved...ie the missiles were fired from the Pyongyang area which is about 200 km west of the Sea of Japan...in which sea we have as many as 17 Aegis ballistic missile defense ships [BMD] of the USN...plus five more from the Japanese navy...

By simple trigonometry we can calculate the missile trajectory angle...ie the apogee height divided by the apogee distance from the launch site is the arctangent of the missile trajectory angle...

So...since the flight is 2,700 km and the apogee occurs at the midpoint...it means the apogee is at a distance of 1,350 km from Pyongyang...

Dividing the known apogee height of 550 km by 1,350 gives a trajectory angle of 22 degrees...

[550 / 350 = 0.4...arcantegnt (0.4) = 22 deg...]

Knowing the trajectory angle we can easily compute the height of the missile at any point over the Sea of Japan...by simply taking the tangent value of any particular straight line distance from Pyongyang...

Ie...let's say that USN ships are 100 km off the coast of Korea...meaning they are 300 km east of Pyongyang in international waters...

At 300 km distance the height of that missile flight is going to be 122 km...half the height of that US193 sat that the SM3 took out in 2008...[300 * 0.4 = 122]...

Even at 500 km from Pyongyang...the height of the missile would be only 200 km...[500 * 0.4 = 200]...

We also note that the flight distance from Pyongyang to Tokyo is 1,285 km...so a ship smack dab in the middle of that route...ie 640 km east of Pyongyang is going to be able to reach that missile...which height at that point would be 260 km...

So clearly a ship 500 or even 600 km east of Pyongyang in
middle of the Sea of Japan is right in the
ideal position to take a shot at a missile flying from Pyongyang to Hokkaido...

We can do the same trajectory angle computations as before and find again that all those Aegis BMD ships in the Sea of Japan would have been in a perfect place to intercept...

But they did not attempt...
again...

Clearly the conclusion is that the system doesn't work and they know it...

But like I said...the challenge is for those Aegis radars to calculate the trajectory of that missile in flight...

The challenge is that they would have only a few minutes...the launch would certainly be detected by US satellites with infrared sensors [heat sensors] due to the massive amount of heat generated by a rocket launch of that size...

The Aegis radars would pick up the rocket as it climbs to an altitude above the radar horizon...

Once the rocket exits the atmosphere and burns out...the boost phase is complete and the rocket is then basically a 'glider'...ie it
continues climbing due its momentum...until...at the apogee its momentum is exceeded by the pull of gravity and it starts descending...

The Sept flight is said to have lasted
17 minutes which is 1,020 seconds...it covered 3700 km so its speed would be about 4 km/s...if we deduct the three minutes or so of the boost phase...

So we can estimate that the midcourse phase lasted about 14 minutes...which means each of the ascent [over the Sea of Japan] and descent phases of the midcourse flight lasted about 7 minutes...

At our calculated speed of 4 km/s [about right for an IRBM]...the Aegis crews would have had about 600 km of midcourse flight time divided by 4 km/s = 150 seconds or 2.5 minutes to get a fix on its trajectory...

Two and a half minutes is not a lot of time...and my guess is that they probably would have had a calculated intercept fix...but they simply were not confident enough to launch...

A miss would make US technology the laughingstock of the world...

However...these challenges of computing a very precise radar fix will probably eventually be solved...once that happens the SM3 should work...just like it did in hitting that satellite...

We note also that the in-development Block 2A of the SM3 has a range of 2,500 km...more than three times greater than the current Block 1...and flies at 50 percent higher speed...4.5 km/s compared to 3 km/s...

We can agree that the SM3 was a scam in terms of military procurement...the system is clearly not ready for action...as demonstrated in the Sea of Japan...

It succeeded in delivering a lot of pork to the MIC parasites...I agree with that...

But sooner or later the system will work...the Russians have to assume that...

An ICBM warhead also inevitably slows down somewhat...but not because it is designed to...it is designed to plummet right in...but still retains a lot of speed as it approaches the ground [it is not designed to hit the ground but to air-burst...]

But it spends a lot
less time going that fast...giving the heat less time to transfer into its surface... and even then the heat load is a major challenge...

Now with a gliding warhead...you obviously do not want to slow it down like you would the space shuttle...which comes down to land at airplane like speeds...it would be easy to shoot down...

But the glider is also going to spend
a lot more time flying through the thick air down low...so the heat transfer will have more time to build up...

So here we bring in the other big part of the puzzle...which is the shockwave...in that illustration of the capsule above...the shock wave is seen just in front of the convex blunt curvature of the body...

Fortunately...that shock wave also shields the heat...the temps behind the shockwave are
much lower...a serendipitous fact of the physical world without which space travel...or at least the re-entry part...would be impossible...

Even so...those heat loads are truly huge...

Now the shockwave geometry clearly mimics the body shape...as seen in that capsule...with a glider you are still going to have a shockwave...but because it is designed to glide it must be more aerodynamic...ie its lift must be greater than its drag...

That means the shape of the shockwave...and its proximity to the body...which is very important...may not be so ideal...

This is a
very large challenge in terms of aerodynamics and thermodynamics...

Then you have other issues...how are you going to control the flight path...having a gyro is fine...but you need actual control surfaces on the craft...ie movable 'flippers' if you will...

Those will require some kind of mechanical or hydro-mechanical actuation...where does the power for that come from...?

What about shielding those mechanical pieces from the heat...?

As you can see it gets complicated pretty fast...

As long as you’ve gone that high in the sky, it makes sense to just go a bit higher and eliminate most heat/friction problems. It is far easier to carry some LOX and pop up outside the atmosphere and then back down, than to push thru thin air. Your vehicle mass is one third as much with a fat lifting body than a long and sleek hypersonic with three times more mass. In short, hypersonics are BS, just use faster and cheaper rockets.

Meanwhile...85 percent of Syrians are now living in govt held areas...over 400,000 people have returned to Aleppo...including many Christians...but you wouldn't know that from our media now would you...?

Since you're talking about teams here nonstop...I think you need to support your team...get out the flag Petey...show your support for your soulmates...

Of course government arsenals/depots/yards had losers, but they were an honest try. There is something wrong when a profit-seeking organization earns more when their products are flawed and must be fixed, and earns more profits when products are costly to maintain, all the while legally bribing congressmen with "contributions" and Generals and Admirals with obvious kickbacks the same month they "retire".

The new $14 billion USS Ford aircraft carrier has a launch system that cannot be fixed because it never worked. It remains an experimental system that after 20 years of development is not ready for use, and may never be. Replacing it with a proven steam system will cost over $5 billion.

The idea that items like aircraft carriers are somehow cheaper and better when produced by a monopoly is insane. Our Pentagon gets ten times more to spend than Russia each year. The fact that Russia can produce anything equal to the USA shows there are major problems.

As I write in my book, aircraft carriers and amphibious ships have a key role in power projection. However, if a major war occurs they must hide far away until enemy subs, missile bases, and bombers are destroyed, which may take months if not years. Then they can come out of hiding to conquer.

However, if a major war occurs they must hide far away until enemy subs, missile bases, and bombers are destroyed, which may take months if not years. Then they can come out of hiding to conquer.

I had a good laugh, this is what happens when so many people play armchair warriors. Where would you hide an aircraft carrier Carlton, under your mattress? This is not the Roosevelt’s WW2 to evacuate the carriers and leave the smaller ships to be sunk.

1. There is some mystery in this Putin "bragging" about new formidable weapons. This is not his style. Why now? Why do it when sanctions are in place and can be easily be tightened as the result? Looks like in order to make such a statement Putin should have intelligence information about a real threat of attack from the USA, or some large scale provocation in Syria or Ukraine. Only in this case his statement makes some sense. As a open warning: do not do it. Otherwise this is just an open invitation for the new, more destructive and expensive stage in nuclear arms race. The scenario that Russia should try to avoid.

2. Also the rule is: if your adversary is making a mistake, you should not try to stop him. If missile defense systems and aircraft carriers are useless why not to allow the USA to put another 100 billion dollars into it ? Something does not compute here. BTW both remain perfectly viable as the first strike weapons (you never know what those tubes contain and they can hold cruise missiles as well). The fact that they will perish is just part of the cost of the whole operation.

3. Russia has way too many problems, both economic and political. So each dollar put into military technology is stolen from the civilian sector and makes sanctions more effective. So succumbing to the arm race is like self-sanctions.

4. After 2012 it is clear that the way the USA will try to undermine Russia is most probably via political interference during the next election, in which there will be a power vacuum as Putin finishes his last term, and there is no Putin II. The problem of the leader succession is a well-known Achilles' spot of Russia. In 2012 the "collective West" achieved pretty significant success in staging color revolution in Russia using pro-West (aka Zapadniki) and comprador sector in Moscow as the fifth column. The political situation in Moscow will always favor pro-European forces, as ther city has a huge concentration of employees of foreign companies, professionals and entrepreneurs who depend on the West and earn money from the West (compradors) . Efforts to put in power a classic neoliberal like Macron in France will be multiplied for elections in 2024. I do not see, why they can't be more successful then in 2012.

5. While weakened by the recent McCarthyism campaign in the USA, Russian comprador sector and neoliberals are still a very powerful political force and control a significant part of media and oligarch money. Russian constitution was written by the USA. And scars from the economic rape of Russia in 90th still did not fully heal. In other words, pro-Western forces in Russia are powerful enough to serve as a base to stage another color revolution. Probably along with crashing oil prices before the elections again, or some other nasty trick. In this case you do not need any missiles. As long as Russia is a neoliberal country Putin and his policies remain a political anomaly. And Putin himself a maverick. There will be no another Putin, but there can well be another Gorbachov, or, worse, Yeltsin. The same is true for China, but at least china has political control of the Communist Party and state ownership of the financial sector. The latter is not true for Russia and is a huge political risk. While neoliberalism entered the stage of decline there is no viable alternatives on the horizon.

6. Loss of Ukraine was/is a huge geopolitical defeat of Putin (and Russia as a country) which can't be compensated any bragging about new weapon systems. It was and still is a geopolitical knockdown.

7. Hopes about "some sensible conversation on the new world order may start between key geopolitical players" are naïve. The US elite is hell-bent on world superiority as this is a pre-condition of the existence of the dollar as the primary world currency. This situation will not probably change until the end of cheap oil, which might take another twenty years or more.

8. If time is working against the US, why not to sit quiet and try not to anger aging hegemon as China supposedly does (having also advantage of host of "offshored" manufacturing from the USA and having the USA as debtor).

9. The level of brain drain from Russia actually is a huge limiting factor, which makes a claim about cruising missile with a nuclear reactor as a part of propulsion engine highly suspect.

10. The network of intelligence agencies around Russia (which now include Estonia and Ukraine) probably represents much more serious threat then the "first style" capability of the USA, if such thing can eve exist.

11. "Collective West" can easily tighten sanction expending them on more technological sectors, thus damaging Russia economic growth. So bragging about new weapons is bad diplomacy when the opponent is much stronger economically and politically.

12. China has less than 300 nuclear weapons and still is regarded as a formidable nuclear power, probably spending 20 times less money in this area.

13. The claim that "The Kinzhal effectively removes any non-suicidal surface force thousands of miles away from Russia’s shores and renders its capabilities irrelevant" is highly questionable. The idea of the first strike includes the elimination of the possibility of launching most (or all) Kinzhal missiles carriers, as a necessary part required for the success of the operation. Any losses of forward deployed units are acceptable in such a huge game.

Looks like in order to make such a statement Putin should have intelligence information about a real threat of attack from the USA, or some large scale provocation in Syria or Ukraine. Only in this case his statement makes some sense. As a open warning: do not do it.

It’s an interesting commentary, and I came to the same conclusion. Threats, braggadocio (We Are Empire) and general hubris are features of 21st century American foreign policy – not Russian, so I have to interpret Putin’s statement as reactive. There is something out there that Putin is aware of, and he’s saying “Don’t do It”.

America is incapable of viewing itself through the eyes of others, and has the kind of blind arrogance that I would best compare to late 19th and early 20th Century German militarism – the deeply embedded German worldview (long before Hitler) of superiority, destiny, and the corresponding natural right to Empire. Hitler was only the last in a long line of German exponents of this view when he said “According to the laws of nature, the soil belongs to he who conquers it. The fact of having children who want to live, the fact that our people is bursting out of its cramped frontiers – these justify all of our claims to the Eastern spaces.”

It took two World Wars, and Russian troops in Berlin, to rid the world of this cancer – and the same dynamic is now at work again. The crazed Imperialist is the USA (or at least its Zio-Glob leadership), but with the difference that a technological WW3 will be over in a matter of days if not hours.

I'm confused about Russia being upset about withdrawal from the ABM. From what I recall, we made it extremely clear the goal was not to stop Russia's nuclear forces. We certainly didn't build or even propose anything like enough capability to stop even 10%. Rather, with the spread of nuclear weapons to Pakistan, not building a deterrent looked like a huge risk. Was this calculus lost on the Russians?

That said, I'm baffled as to why we tried to prosecute a global war on terror without involving Russia. "You have problems with crazy muslims blowing you up? Hey! Us too!" It seemed like the perfect opportunity to cement the end of the cold war with, if not an alliance, at least a working partnership. We probably could have even gotten China engaged. Instead, we tried to wage war in Russia's backyard without Russia's support.

So I concur that there were about 15 years of blown diplomatic opportunities, but don't see why the ABM was one of them.

I’m confused about Russia being upset about withdrawal from the ABM. From what I recall, we made it extremely clear the goal was not to stop Russia’s nuclear forces.

Oh at last! I thought if ZUS establishment represented only by imbeciles, why can’t we see them here? And here you are. “I’m confused about” US “being upset about” Russias weapons? “we made it extremely clear the goal was not to stop” US’s stupid indespencable democracy spreading around the world!

That said, I’m baffled as to why we tried to prosecute a global war on terror without involving Russia.

Kiza, I agree with you on almost everything, except the zionist part. I think it’s the Anglo-Saxons that deserve most of the blame. Sure, the Jews are taking advantage of the situation, but I don’t blame them. If they are going to be used as propaganda props, why not gain something for themselves too? You don’t have to agree with me, everybody has their own opinion.

Sure, If one got a parasite it’not parasite is to blame, and neither parasite should get rid of its host.

Putin should have intelligence information about a real threat of attack from the USA, or some large scale provocation in Syria or Ukraine.

I'd go for Ukraine.

Something does not compute here.

Well, "if we can't have it it's not good."
Sour grapes.

Russia has way too many problems, both economic and political. So each dollar put into military technology is stolen from the civilian sector and makes sanctions more effective. So succumbing to the arm race is like self-sanctions.

Agree.

In other words, pro-Western forces in Russia are powerful enough to serve as a base to stage another color revolution.

In this case you do not need any missiles.

While neoliberalism entered the stage of decline there is no viable alternatives on the horizon.

Agree.

Loss of Ukraine was/is a huge geopolitical defeat of Putin (and Russia as a country) which can’t be compensated any bragging about new weapon systems. It was and still is a geopolitical knockdown.

Agree.
But, perhaps that's not true. In any case, the resident "Team Russia" will now explain that. As victory, of course.

Hopes about “some sensible conversation on the new world order may start between key geopolitical players” are naïve. The US elite is hell-bent on world superiority as this is a pre-condition of the existence of the dollar as the primary world currency.

Agree.

If time is working against the US, why not to sit quiet and try not to anger aging hegemon as China supposedly does (having also advantage of host of “offshored” manufacturing from the USA and having the USA as debtor).

and

The level of brain drain from Russia actually is a huge limiting factor, which makes a claim about cruising missile with a nuclear reactor as a part of propulsion engine highly suspect.

and

“Collective West” can easily tighten sanction expending them on more technological sectors, thus damaging Russia economic growth. So bragging about new weapons is bad diplomacy when the opponent is much stronger economically and politically.

As Syria’s example shows, one of the major Russian exports of the future will be, in fact–already is, a political stability and defense against “regime changes”. This “product” will be in a very high demand.

Why isn't Russia pumping out S200-300-400's like candy?

This would be good for everyone - defense is always moral.

p.s. After the F16 shoot down - have heard of no new Israeli flights into Syria???

Why isn’t Russia pumping out S200-300-400′s like candy?

Actually she does. With the exception of S-200 which is long ago obsolete and not in production. S-300 and S-400, however, are hot-hot-hot(c) on the market. Even Turkey and Saudi Arabia bought S-400.

Panic stations! Nobody outside of Russia, and few enough inside it, I'd guess, have taken Puitn seriously. Putin can't be so stupid as not to realize that, by making his announcement in the run-up to the election, it would be seen as electioneering. That’s just common sense. He also cannot be so stupid as not to realize that the US cannot just let another country announce that it has superior weapons to it. Putin has is already knocking holes in US credibility every day he is allowed to remain in Ukraine. The US reaction will almost certainly be an arms race, which Russia simply cannot afford and maybe even further and better arming of Ukraine. The author’s frantic attempts to plug the hole confirms my suspicion that Putin has lurched into yet another blunder, his seventh by my count.

What makes you think the USA can afford another arms race? The USA is about to go bankrupt…

1. There is some mystery in this Putin "bragging" about new formidable weapons. This is not his style. Why now? Why do it when sanctions are in place and can be easily be tightened as the result? Looks like in order to make such a statement Putin should have intelligence information about a real threat of attack from the USA, or some large scale provocation in Syria or Ukraine. Only in this case his statement makes some sense. As a open warning: do not do it. Otherwise this is just an open invitation for the new, more destructive and expensive stage in nuclear arms race. The scenario that Russia should try to avoid.

2. Also the rule is: if your adversary is making a mistake, you should not try to stop him. If missile defense systems and aircraft carriers are useless why not to allow the USA to put another 100 billion dollars into it ? Something does not compute here. BTW both remain perfectly viable as the first strike weapons (you never know what those tubes contain and they can hold cruise missiles as well). The fact that they will perish is just part of the cost of the whole operation.

3. Russia has way too many problems, both economic and political. So each dollar put into military technology is stolen from the civilian sector and makes sanctions more effective. So succumbing to the arm race is like self-sanctions.

4. After 2012 it is clear that the way the USA will try to undermine Russia is most probably via political interference during the next election, in which there will be a power vacuum as Putin finishes his last term, and there is no Putin II. The problem of the leader succession is a well-known Achilles' spot of Russia. In 2012 the "collective West" achieved pretty significant success in staging color revolution in Russia using pro-West (aka Zapadniki) and comprador sector in Moscow as the fifth column. The political situation in Moscow will always favor pro-European forces, as ther city has a huge concentration of employees of foreign companies, professionals and entrepreneurs who depend on the West and earn money from the West (compradors) . Efforts to put in power a classic neoliberal like Macron in France will be multiplied for elections in 2024. I do not see, why they can't be more successful then in 2012.

5. While weakened by the recent McCarthyism campaign in the USA, Russian comprador sector and neoliberals are still a very powerful political force and control a significant part of media and oligarch money. Russian constitution was written by the USA. And scars from the economic rape of Russia in 90th still did not fully heal. In other words, pro-Western forces in Russia are powerful enough to serve as a base to stage another color revolution. Probably along with crashing oil prices before the elections again, or some other nasty trick. In this case you do not need any missiles. As long as Russia is a neoliberal country Putin and his policies remain a political anomaly. And Putin himself a maverick. There will be no another Putin, but there can well be another Gorbachov, or, worse, Yeltsin. The same is true for China, but at least china has political control of the Communist Party and state ownership of the financial sector. The latter is not true for Russia and is a huge political risk. While neoliberalism entered the stage of decline there is no viable alternatives on the horizon.

6. Loss of Ukraine was/is a huge geopolitical defeat of Putin (and Russia as a country) which can't be compensated any bragging about new weapon systems. It was and still is a geopolitical knockdown.

7. Hopes about "some sensible conversation on the new world order may start between key geopolitical players" are naïve. The US elite is hell-bent on world superiority as this is a pre-condition of the existence of the dollar as the primary world currency. This situation will not probably change until the end of cheap oil, which might take another twenty years or more.

8. If time is working against the US, why not to sit quiet and try not to anger aging hegemon as China supposedly does (having also advantage of host of "offshored" manufacturing from the USA and having the USA as debtor).

9. The level of brain drain from Russia actually is a huge limiting factor, which makes a claim about cruising missile with a nuclear reactor as a part of propulsion engine highly suspect.

10. The network of intelligence agencies around Russia (which now include Estonia and Ukraine) probably represents much more serious threat then the "first style" capability of the USA, if such thing can eve exist.

11. "Collective West" can easily tighten sanction expending them on more technological sectors, thus damaging Russia economic growth. So bragging about new weapons is bad diplomacy when the opponent is much stronger economically and politically.

12. China has less than 300 nuclear weapons and still is regarded as a formidable nuclear power, probably spending 20 times less money in this area.

13. The claim that "The Kinzhal effectively removes any non-suicidal surface force thousands of miles away from Russia’s shores and renders its capabilities irrelevant" is highly questionable. The idea of the first strike includes the elimination of the possibility of launching most (or all) Kinzhal missiles carriers, as a necessary part required for the success of the operation. Any losses of forward deployed units are acceptable in such a huge game.

You make some interesting observations and your comment is thought-provoking…

However…I think the intent of the article was to explore some of the technical issues of what we saw on March 1…not so much the political dimension…and certainly your approach is to try to get an overall…wide angle picture that gets every possible Russia issue into the frame…

…which by necessity means you give up some resolution…or granularity if y0u will…compared to a more tightly focused article…

You start with an initial premise of why announce these weapons now…and question the wisdom…the simple answer may be technical related…these weapons may be already mature technically and now is the time to show them…?

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar…

A couple more points…you mention sanctions quite a bit…but we have seen that Russia is able to carry on just fine…sanctions or not…

The key indicator there is that sanctions are having a much bigger blowback on the US itself…ie the US is losing Europe…

Germany has been quite vocal about US going a step too far in trying to dictate energy policy…which is key to German industrial export economy…and besides they may finally be finding their sea legs after years of subservience to an increasingly unhinged country that is heading for the cliff…

The Germans are going to get Nordstream 2…because they want it…it is actually more important to Germany than to Russia…Russia has been supplying energy to Europe for many decades going back to Soviet times…but is just now starting to feed the biggest energy consumer in the world…China…

Other, smaller EU countries notably Italy…have become quite vocal about Russia sanctions hurting them…we saw just now an election in Italy where the ruling claque were turfed…

So it seems that the days of US dictating the politics to its European vassals may be over…the kind of friction they are making with sanctions and their increasing hysteria is only hastening this process of vassals breaking off…

The other issue is Ukraine…you bring to this the the typical US perspective of ‘losing’ a country…this again goes back to the vassal game…

The US gained all of Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union…but did Russia lose anything…sensible people will say the lost they burden of empire…long after it had ceased being profitable…as with the British previously…

Ukraine is historically something of an artificial country…the original Kievan Rus [Rurivik dynasty] was the original Russia…it fell apart after the Mongol invasions…but the Russian and Ukrainian language and people are mostly indistinguishable…other than the Galician Catholic minority…

For several hundred years the peoples of the Ukraine [ie even then it was more than a single national people] were under rule by the Poles and Lithuania…while the new Russian empire based in Moscow gained strength and eventually took over 300 years ago…

There are and have always been Ukrainian nationalists that do not like Russia…but they are in the minority…the best way to think of Ukraine is similar to Scotland…even the Irish are more distant from the English than Ukrainians from Russians…

Politically the situation we see in Ukraine is that the ordinary people don’t really care about the politics…they are genuinely concerned about bread and butter…it is quite sad actually that the US is treating the Ukraine as a pawn…and a quite cheap one at that…in its game with Russia…

I don’t believe the Russians look at the situation that way…there is real fraternity among many Russians and Ukrainians that goes to a fundamental level…again similar to Scotland where the country is divided on the issue of the English…

So unless the EU and US are prepared to do a full Marshall plan to drag Ukraine into a reasonable living standard…then this ‘win’ will turn out to be something of a chimera…

Heck the polls even in eastern Europe are trending against the post Cold War direction…with about half the people now questioning if the new boss is really better than the old boss…

And finally if you are going to do a wide angle shot like this…then get the crazy cousin into the picture also…ie the US and its failing Ponzi economy…that is bound to collapse just on the principles of mathematics…

China and Russia are working to bury the source of all US strength…the petrodollar…this is literally kryptonite…the US is quite simply toast once the petrodollar sinks…

China is the world’s biggest economy and biggest energy buyer…Russia is the world’s biggest energy seller…other nations too that are not so strong and have felt the body blows of US economic warfare…such as Iran, Venezuela and other will gladly join in…

It’s starting to feel like US has used up all its chips and all its markers…

The entire developing world wants real prosperity not economic colonialism and corporate plunder…

These are some large and powerful currents that have to be taken into account…if one is going to take a wide angle shot of geopolitics…

Ukraine is historically something of an artificial country…the original Kievan Rus [Rurivik dynasty] was the original Russia…it fell apart after the Mongol invasions

Relationship of Kievan Rus to modern Russia and Ukraine is somewhat analogous to the relationship of Charlemagne's Frankish Empire to modern France or Germany. Although both Germany and France would have to be in the same linguistic family for the analogy to be more accurate.

For several hundred years the peoples of the Ukraine [ie even then it was more than a single national people] were under rule by the Poles and Lithuania

Correct. This meant not only political separation but largescale settlement (about 10% of the population were Polish settlers - these were absorbed by the natives, so most Ukrainians have some Polish roots), centuries of schooling, etc. And this was enough to lead to a different culture, language, identity.

eventually took over 300 years ago

The eastern half of Ukraine was linked to Moscow in the 1650s (so indeed about 300 years), but the western half in the 1770s (so 200 years) and Galicia not until 1939.

but the Russian and Ukrainian language and people are mostly indistinguishable

Incorrect. Ukrainian is about as close to Russian as it is to Polish (Ukrainian grammar and pronunciation is closer to Russian, but Ukrainian vocabulary actually has more words in common with Polish than with Russian). The Scandinavian languages are closer to each other Russian is to Ukrainian. The catch is that in everyday life about half of Ukrainians, and most urban Ukrainians other than people in Lviv, use Russian rather than Ukrainian. Kiev is a Russian-speaking city (and Dublin an English-speaking one).

the best way to think of Ukraine is similar to Scotland

Anatol Lieven correctly observed that Ukraine's relationship to Russia is somewhere between that of Scotland and that of Ireland, to England. Viewing it as Scotland is too positive, as Ireland too negative. Given that Scotland itself nearly separated, it is natural to see Ukraine as separate.

You seem very knowledgeable about this stuff. What do you think of this article: http://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/376680-theatrics-or-threat-putin-leans-on-nuclear-hysteria-to-mask?amp&__twitter_impression=true

I think that article was linked earlier.

It’s obviously mostly nonsense.

His description of Putin is totally wrong. But those kind of views are nothing new at this point, standard russophobia.

He also seems to describe the Russian military as it was in… maybe around 2010. AFAIK, the basic modernization and reorganization is already largely done, the equipment is mostly modern, etc.

The social situation overall (also in regards to hazing, evaders… whatever the actual term is) has massively improved. At the same time, military service and the military as a whole is viewed much more positively by the Russians, compared to only 5-10 years ago.

Nowadays there are more contractors than conscripts. And of course, it’s not true that conscripts are automatically somehow massively inferior, in certain roles that is. These are from the end 2016, now the situation is obviously even “better”: - Officers 205,000 - Contractors 384,000 - Conscripts 275,000 - Total = 864,000 active personnel

Lastly, Putin actually mostly talked about economic and social issues, infrastructure… So the whole narrative is wrong. The weapons showcase was about deterrence, they want to focus on internal issues.

Excellent article.
I also payed attention to Daggers specifically also because unlike those "bizarre" nukes they can be used now. However , I am skeptical about American elites getting it at this stage. The process went too far. if this is Stalingrad, then next logical step is required. Which is important rather as psychological step, not that Russia would have needed it were USA a reasonable state. Placing daggers next to USA would have immediate psychological impact and there is nothing US Navy can do now unlike Cuban crisis. Having all of USA within 5 min flight, what bull eye on my dears backs can be better thought of.

If history shows us anything, that is that the US elite will NOT get it. They cannot be reasoned with. They might pretend to negotiate, perhaps to stall for time and then stab Russia in the back. If one operation could be done to eradicate most of their gear, that would do world peace a great service.

His description of Putin is totally wrong. But those kind of views are nothing new at this point, standard russophobia.

He also seems to describe the Russian military as it was in... maybe around 2010. AFAIK, the basic modernization and reorganization is already largely done, the equipment is mostly modern, etc.

The social situation overall (also in regards to hazing, evaders... whatever the actual term is) has massively improved. At the same time, military service and the military as a whole is viewed much more positively by the Russians, compared to only 5-10 years ago.

Nowadays there are more contractors than conscripts. And of course, it's not true that conscripts are automatically somehow massively inferior, in certain roles that is. These are from the end 2016, now the situation is obviously even "better":
- Officers 205,000
- Contractors 384,000
- Conscripts 275,000
- Total = 864,000 active personnel

Lastly, Putin actually mostly talked about economic and social issues, infrastructure... So the whole narrative is wrong. The weapons showcase was about deterrence, they want to focus on internal issues.

Putin and those around him would better do concentrate on internal issues or eventually issues will concentrate on them.